Successive Cancellation Decoding of Single Parity-Check Product Codes: Analysis and Improved Decoding
A product code with single parity-check component codes can be seen as a special instance of a multi-kernel polar code, where the rows of the generator matrix are chosen according to the constraints imposed by the product code construction. Following this observation, successive cancellation decoding of such codes is introduced. In particular, the error probability of single parity-check product codes over the binary erasure channel under successive cancellation decoding is characterized. A bridge with the analysis of product codes introduced by Elias is also established. Successive cancellation list decoding of single parity-check product codes is then described. For the provided example, it is shown that successive cancellation list decoding outperforms belief propagation decoding performed on the code graph over the binary input additive white Gaussian channel. Finally, the performance of the concatenation of a product code with a high-rate outer code is investigated via distance spectrum analysis.
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