Patent ID: 7111226

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a rate control sequencer that is operable to provide a rate control sequence having a plurality of rate controls arranged in a period, wherein: each rate control of a plurality of rate controls has a modulation selected from a plurality of modulations; each modulation of the plurality of modulations has a constellation selected from a plurality of constellations, a mapping selected from a plurality of mappings, and a bandwidth efficiency selected from a plurality of bandwidth efficiencies; each encoded symbol of a plurality of encoded symbols is encoded according to a rate control of the plurality of rate controls; for each encoded symbol of the plurality of encoded symbols, a metric generator is operable to calculate a plurality of metrics according to a rate control that corresponds to that encoded symbol; for each encoded symbol of the plurality of encoded symbols, the plurality of metrics are mapped to a plurality of trellis metrics based on a trellis according to the rate control that corresponds to that encoded symbol; a top soft-in soft-out functional block (SISO) that, based on the plurality of trellis metrics, is operable to calculate a first plurality of extrinsic values for each encoded symbol of the plurality of encoded symbols according to the respective rate control; an interleaver, communicatively coupled to the top SISO, that is operable to interleave the first plurality of extrinsic values to generate a first “a priori probability” (app) information; a bottom SISO that, based on the plurality of trellis metrics, is operable to calculate a second plurality of extrinsic values for each encoded symbol of the plurality of encoded symbols according to the respective rate control; a de-interleaver, communicatively coupled to the bottom SISO, that is operable to de-interleave the second plurality of extrinsic values to generate a second “a priori probability” (app) information, wherein: the first “a priori probability” (app) information is fed back to the bottom SISO; the second “a priori probability” (app) information is fed back to the top SISO; the top SISO and the bottom SISO operate cooperatively to perform at least one iteration of iterative decoding to generate a plurality of soft symbol decisions, each soft symbol decision of the plurality of soft symbol decisions corresponds to an encoded symbol of the plurality of encoded symbols; and an output processor, communicatively coupled to the bottom SISO, that is operable to generate a hard symbol decision for each soft symbol decision of the plurality of soft symbol decisions thereby making a best estimate for each encoded symbol of the plurality of encoded symbols.