Patent ID: 7181668

Claim:
A method of decoding a received data block, comprising the steps of: receiving, over a channel, an encoded symbol block of at least one data symbol, wherein each data symbol corresponds to an encoded data bit; padding the received symbol block with at least one padding symbol; decoding the padded symbol block based on an amount of padding using a decoder; and providing a plurality of padded interleaver tables including one first entry associated with each data symbol in the symbol block and one second entry associated with each padding symbol, wherein a first padded interleaver table of the plurality of padded interleaver tables has a first number of first entries, a second padded interleaver of the plurality of padded interleaver tables has a second number of first entries, and the decoding step includes sending the padded symbol block with N data symbols and the padded interleaver table with D first entries to the decoder, where N=D.