Patent ID: 8184735

Claim:
A sphere decoding method applied to a multi-input multi-output (MIMO) channel, comprising: enumerating a plurality of constellation points of an n th detection layer corresponding to a MIMO channel matrix based on an enumeration rule, and defining at least one n th sub-set of the n th detection layer; selecting a constellation point with the least partial Euclidean distance (PED) as a preferred point from the n th sub-set; selecting another constellation point of the n th detection layer, not included in the n th sub-set, to substitute for the preferred point as one element of the n th sub-set; updating, if other preferred points are needed to be obtained, the n th sub-set repeatedly according to the least PED; and determining an optimal solution according to K n preferred points of the n th detection layer, wherein K n is a positive integer, the method implemented by a processor on a chip to decode a signal provided over the MIMO channel.