LDPC Decoder Applications

In 2005 DVB-S2 became the first standard to adopt LDPC codes. Today it is quite popular and the de-facto standard for high-speed satellite communication. The standard defines four different system configurations and application areas: broadcast services, interactive services, digital satellite news gathering (DSNG), and professional services.

The properties of the LDPC codes in this standard make the hardware implementation of the LDPC decoder quite challenging. With 64800 bits the DVB-x2 series offers the longest LDPC codeword sizes, consuming quite a bit of memory in a hardware realization. Throughputs are typically less than 100 Mbit/s on the air interface. Together with an outer BCH decoder, the forward error correction of the DVB-S2 standard achieves an outstanding error correction performance.