A low-complexity soft-decision decoder for extended BCH and RS-like codes

Soft-decision decoding of algebraic codes has been an area of active research interest for a long time. In this paper, we present sub-optimal, soft decoders for extended binary BCH codes and certain subcodes of extended RS codes. Our proposed decoders consist of a soft-information processing block followed by a traditional, hard-decision, bounded-distance decoder for the underlying BCH or RS codes. The soft-processor in both cases consists of SISO decoders for extended Hamming codes, which can be implemented with low complexity. The coding gains obtained are comparable with other soft decoders proposed in the literature.