Patent ID: 7657819

Claim:
A method for termination of turbo decoding of received data, wherein said turbo decoding is carried out iteratively comprising two decoding elements per iteration, the method comprising: reading first values from a memory of the corresponding decoding element, said first values being either a plurality of first log-likelihood ratio values of a-priori information or a variable which is associated with the a-priori information; calling up second values as a function of output values from the same decoding element, said second values being either a plurality of second log-likelihood ratio values of extrinsic information or a variable which is associated with the extrinsic information for one of the two decoding elements, said first and second values being associated with the same systematic bits of the received data; determining a value of a decision variable which is characteristic of the number of mathematical sign discrepancies between the first and the second values, wherein a mathematical sign discrepancy is present when the mathematical sign of a first value and the mathematical sign of a second value are different for the same systematic bit of the received data; terminating the turbo decoding when the value of the decision variable indicates that the number of mathematical sign discrepancies is: (a) less than or alternatively at least equal to a first number, or (b) greater than or alternatively at least equal to a second number, wherein the second number is greater than the first number.