A pipelined Reed-Solomon decoder based on a modified step-by-step algorithm

We propose a pipelined Reed-Solomon (RS) decoder for an ultra-wideband system using a modified step-by-step algorithm. To reduce the complexity, the modified step-by-step algorithm merges two cases of the original algorithm. The pipelined structure allows the decoder to work at high rates with minimum delay. Consequently, for RS(23,17) codes, the proposed architecture requires 42.5% and 24.4% less area compared with a modified Euclidean architecture and a pipelined degree-computationless modified Euclidean architecture, respectively. The area of the proposed decoder is 11.3% less than that of the previous step-by-step decoder with a lower critical path delay.