Patent ID: 7127660

Claim:
A method for correcting a burst of errors having a length of b bits together with a random error, comprising: providing a received word in a syndrome register for analysis, the syndrome register being defined by a polynomial of degree n-k generating a cyclic code of length n and dimension k, k being the number of information bits in each codeword of said code, the received word being shifted in a first direction in the syndrome register M times, wherein M is less than or equal to n; analyzing the syndrome register to determine whether the first n-k-b bits in the syndrome register are zero; when a bit in the first n-k-b bits in the syndrome register is determined to be non-zero, XORing the vector in the syndrome register with all possible syndromes corresponding to one error; and identifying a random error and an error burst in the last b bits of the syndrome register when an XOR of the first n-k-b bits in the syndrome register results in the first n-k-b bits equaling zero.