Patent ID: 8225186

Claim:
A method of decoding a communication signal, the method comprising: receiving a set of symbols containing a plurality of information bits; dividing the received set of symbols into a plurality of subsets of symbols, each subset corresponding to the input of an inner code demodulation; selecting a set of initial a priori values of the inner code demodulation for each subset of symbols; demodulating each subset of symbols, using the initial a priori values of the subset of symbols and an inner code generator matrix, to generate a plurality of first soft information values as the output of the inner code demodulation; associating each of the first soft information values to one of the plurality of information bits using an outer code generator matrix; calculating a plurality of second soft information values as the output of the outer code demodulation, wherein each second soft information value corresponds to one of the information bits and is calculated using at least two of the first soft information values associated with the information bit; determining a new set of a priori values of the inner code demodulation for each subset of symbols, using the second soft information values and the outer code generator matrix, and replacing the initial a priori values with the new a priori values; and repeating the demodulating, associating, calculating and determining actions at least once.