This paper presents a modified Trellis Min-Max (T-MM) algorithm together with the associated architecture for non-binary (NB) low-density parity-check (LDPC) decoders. The proposed T-MM algorithm is able to reduce the memory requirements for the check-node messages through an efficient compression method and enhance the error-rate performance using the appropriate decompression. A method of updating the a posteriori log-likelihood ratio in the delta domain is used to simplify the computational and storage complexity. In order to enhance the decoding throughput, a low-complexity early termination (ET) scheme is devised by using the hard decisions of the variable-to-check messages, where, although a minor overhead is introduced, there is no visible degradation in error rate. As a proof of concept, a row-parallel layered decoder for the 32-ary (837, 726) LDPC code is implemented using a 90-nm CMOS process. The proposed decoder achieves a throughput of 1.64 Gb/s at 526.32 MHz based on eight iterations and has an area of 6.86 mm2. When the ET scheme is enabled, the decoder achieves a maximum throughput of 4.68 Gb/s with a frame error rate of 3.25 x 10^-6 at E_b/N_0 = 4.5 dB. The proposed NB-LDPC decoder achieves the highest throughput and hardware efficiency compared to the state-of-the-art decoders, even when the ET scheme is not enabled.
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