Patent ID: 8209589

Claim:
A Reed-Solomon decoder, comprising: a syndrome calculator that receives an input codeword and calculates a first set of syndromes, the input codeword having a set of information symbols and a set of redundant symbols, the set of redundant symbols consisting of a set of zero symbols in first redundant symbol positions and a set of non-zero redundant symbols in second redundant symbol positions; a syndrome transform that receives the first set of syndromes having a first number of syndromes and determines a second set of syndromes based on the first set of syndromes, the second set of syndromes having a second number of syndromes, the first number of syndromes greater than the second number of syndromes, the syndrome transform receiving an indicator of a maximum number of errors, the indicator of the maximum number of errors determining a transform of the first set of syndromes into the second set of syndromes; and, a key equation solver that receives the second set of syndromes and produces an indication of zero or more error locations and an indication of zero or more error values, the indication of zero or more error locations not including the first redundant symbol positions.