Patent ID: 6034996
Filing Date: 2000-03-07
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
An apparatus for communicating data symbols having concatenated Reed-Solomon and trellis codes comprising:a Reed-Solomon encoder having k input symbols and n output symbols;a trellis encoder disposed to receive to encode the output of the Reed-Solomon encoder and generate encoded output bits; anda mapper defined by a signal constellation having 2.sup.L points, the mapper disposed to receive the encoded output bits, any portion of the output of the Reed-Solomon not received by the trellis encoder, and p information bits not input to the Reed-Solomon encoder, and generate an output symbol, the mapper being configured to generate unique output symbols forming a constellation, wherein the p information bits not input to the Reed-Solomon define 2.sup.P evenly distributed points of the signal constellation having the greatest Euclidean separation, where p is less than L.