Patent ID: 6977972

Claim:
A method of demodulating a multi-level signal comprising: (a) identifying at least one signal constellation vector proximate to said multilevel signal; (b) assigning a respective hard decision bit values to individual bits of said multilevel signal occupying corresponding bit positions of said at least one proximate constellation vector having constant value; (c) assigning respective reliability measures to individual bits of said multilevel signal occupying corresponding bit positions of said at least one proximate constellation vector having varying value: and (d) comparing respective reliability measures of said multilevel signal to a predetermined range, said respective reliability measures being log likelihood ratios; where bits having reliability measures outside the predetermined range are assigned hard decision bit values and bits having reliability measures within the predetermined range are assigned soft decision bit values and the predetermined range is chosen according to a desired mix of hard decision and soft decision bit assignments for bits occupying corresponding bit positions of said at least one proximate constellation vector having varying value.