Patent ID: 7200797

Claim:
A method of optimizing a size of coded data blocks intended to be subjected to an iterative decoding process, comprising: selecting a maximum acceptable error rate of the iterative decoding process; receiving, at a receiver, coded data sent by a transmitter; and determining, prior to performing the decoding process, but after receiving the received coded data, and based on the selected maximum acceptable error rate, (1) a submultiple block size among a plurality of integer block sizes N/k, which are submultiples of an integer block size N by an integer factor k greater than or equal to 1, wherein k is a factor of N; and (2) a maximum number of iterations among a plurality of integers corresponding to a maximum number of iterations to be applied by the iterative decoding process on a coded data block of the submultiple block size, such that a mean number of iterations that will be applied by the iterative decoding process on the submultiple block size is minimized, wherein the submultiple block size and the maximum number of iterations are determined together prior to performing the iterative decoding process.