Design of Soft Viterbi Algorithm Decoder Enhanced With Non-Transmittable Codewords for Storage Media

Abstract: Viterbi Algorithm Decoder Enhanced with Non-transmittable Codewords is one of the best decoding algorithm which effectively improves forward error correction performance. HoweverViterbi decoder enhanced with NTCs is not yet designed to work in storage media devices. Currently Reed Solomon (RS) Algorithm is almost the dominant algorithm used in correcting error in storage media. Conversely, recent studies show that there still exist low reliability of data in storage media while the demand for storage media increases drastically. This study proposes a design of the Soft Viterbi Algorithm decoder enhanced with Non-transmittable Codewords (SVAD-NTCs) to be used in storage media for error correction. Matlab simulation was used in this design in order to investigate behavior and effectiveness of SVAD-NTCs in correcting errors in data retrieving from storage media.Sample data of one million bits are randomly generated, Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) was used as data distortion model and Binary Phase- Shift Keying (BPSK) was applied for simulation modulation. Results show that,behaviors of SVAD-NTC performance increase as you increase the NTCs, but beyond 6NTCs there is no significant change and SVAD-NTCs design drastically reduce the total residual error from 216,878 of Reed Solomon to 23,900.