Patent ID: 7434149

Claim:
A prediction device applicable to a Viterbi decoder, said Viterbi decoder at least comprising a path computing module, a path metric comparison module, a plurality of path memories, a traceback module and a storage control module, said prediction device comprising: a prediction module receiving a path source of all states in a current stage from said path computing module and the state of the minimum path metric of the current stage from said path metric comparison module to determine whether the state of the minimum path metric of a previous stage is connected to the state of the minimum path metric of the current stage based on a prediction activation signal from said storage control module and the state of the minimum path metric of the previous stage stored in said prediction module, and outputting a prediction success signal to said storage control module; and a plurality of decoded bit storages, each of said decoded bit storages corresponding to one of said path memories, and storing at least a decoded bit outputted by said prediction module or by said traceback module sequentially.