VLSI Implementation of Block Error Correction Coding Techniques

Abstract

Communication Engineering has become the most vital field of Engineering in today’s life. The world is dreaded to think beyond any communication gadgets. Data communication basically involves transfers of data from one place to another or from one point of time to another. Error may be introduced by the channel which makes data unreliable for user. Hence we need different error detection and error correction schemes.
In the present work, we perform the comparative study between different FECs like Turbo codes, Reed-Solomon codes and LPDC codes. But among all these we find Reed Solomon to be most efficient for data communication because of low coding complexity and high coding rate. The RS codes are non-binary, linear and cyclic codes used for burst error correction. They are used in numerous applications like CDs, DVDs and deep space communication. We simulate RS Encoder and RS Decoder for double error correcting RS (7, 3) code. Then we implement RS (255,239) code in VHDL. In RS (255,239) code, each data symbol consists of 8 bits which is quite practical as most of the data transfer is done in terms of bytes. The implementation has been done in the most efficient algorithms to optimize the design in terms of space utilization and latency of the code. The behavioral simulation has been carried out for each block and for the whole design also. Finally, the FPGA utilization and clock cycles needed are analyzed and compared with the already developed designs.