A channel encoding unit for encoding transmission data using a sparse matrix H = (G | T) representing a sparse graph of a rate-adaptive LDPC-Staircase code, wherein a column and a row of the sparse matrix corresponds to an information and a check node of the sparse graph, respectively, and a "one" within the sparse matrix corresponds to an edge connecting an information node and a check node, G and T are sparse matrices and T is a staircase matrix, the channel encoding unit comprising a sparse matrix creation device adapted to create the sparse matrix H by using a progressive edge-growth, PEG, algorithm followed by column rearrangement for constructing the rate-adaptive LDPC-Staircase code according to input data comprising information about the sparse matrix size and the number of columns having a first column weight and a second column weight, wherein the first column weight is a light column weight and the second column weight is a heavy column weight, and comprising: an algebraic structure creation unit adapted to create the staircase matrix T; a searching unit adapted to search up to a search depth within a local graph, having as a route node an information node being the target of addition of a new edge, for check nodes which can be reached through a minimum number of edges from the route node; a node selection unit adapted to select from the result of the searching unit a check node connected to the route node within the local graph satisfying predefined conditions; a route-node edge connection unit adapted to connect, through an edge, the check node selected by the node selection unit and the route node,; and a constrained interleaving unit adapted to perform column rearrangement; wherein the sparse matrix creation device is further adapted to start the creation of the sparse matrix H of the rate-adaptive Staircase-LDPC code with the creation of the staircase matrix T, firstly followed by the creation of a sparse matrix G1 in which each column has the first column weight and thereafter followed by the creation of a sparse matrix G2 in which each column has the second column weight, and, after all elements of the sparse matrices T, G1 and G2 have been created by the algebraic structure creation unit, the searching unit, the node selection unit and the route-node edge connection unit, to rearrange, by the constrained interleaving unit, the columns of the sparse matrices G1 and G2 to obtain the sparse matrix G so that the first and the second column weights are uniformly distributed in the sparse matrix G and to output the sparse matrix H = (G | T). a sparse matrix creation device adapted to create the sparse matrix H by using a progressive edge-growth, PEG, algorithm followed by column rearrangement for constructing the rate-adaptive LDPC-Staircase code according to input data comprising information about the sparse matrix size and the number of columns having a first column weight and a second column weight, wherein the first column weight is a light column weight and the second column weight is a heavy column weight, and comprising: an algebraic structure creation unit adapted to create the staircase matrix T; a searching unit adapted to search up to a search depth within a local graph, having as a route node an information node being the target of addition of a new edge, for check nodes which can be reached through a minimum number of edges from the route node; a node selection unit adapted to select from the result of the searching unit a check node connected to the route node within the local graph satisfying predefined conditions; a route-node edge connection unit adapted to connect, through an edge, the check node selected by the node selection unit and the route node,; and a constrained interleaving unit adapted to perform column rearrangement; wherein an algebraic structure creation unit adapted to create the staircase matrix T; a searching unit adapted to search up to a search depth within a local graph, having as a route node an information node being the target of addition of a new edge, for check nodes which can be reached through a minimum number of edges from the route node; a node selection unit adapted to select from the result of the searching unit a check node connected to the route node within the local graph satisfying predefined conditions; a route-node edge connection unit adapted to connect, through an edge, the check node selected by the node selection unit and the route node,; and a constrained interleaving unit adapted to perform column rearrangement; wherein the sparse matrix creation device is further adapted to start the creation of the sparse matrix H of the rate-adaptive Staircase-LDPC code with the creation of the staircase matrix T, firstly followed by the creation of a sparse matrix G1 in which each column has the first column weight and thereafter followed by the creation of a sparse matrix G2 in which each column has the second column weight, and, after all elements of the sparse matrices T, G1 and G2 have been created by the algebraic structure creation unit, the searching unit, the node selection unit and the route-node edge connection unit, to rearrange, by the constrained interleaving unit, the columns of the sparse matrices G1 and G2 to obtain the sparse matrix G so that the first and the second column weights are uniformly distributed in the sparse matrix G and to output the sparse matrix H = (G | T).