Staircase codes (SCCs) are typically decoded using iterative bounded-distance decoding (BDD) and hard decisions. In this paper, a novel decoding algorithm is proposed, which partially uses soft information from the channel. The proposed algorithm is based on marking certain number of highly reliable and highly unreliable bits. These marked bits are used to improve the miscorrection-detection capability of the SCC decoder and the error-correcting capability of BDD. For SCCs with 2-error-correcting Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem component codes, our algorithm improves upon standard SCC decoding by up to 0.30 dB at a bit-error rate (BER) of 10−7. The proposed algorithm is shown to achieve almost half of the gain achievable by a genie decoder with this structure. The increased complexity caused by bit marking and additional calls to the component BDD decoder is discussed as well. Our algorithm is also extended (with minor modifications) to product codes. The simulation results show that in this case, the algorithm offers gains of up to 0.5 dB at a BER of 10−7.

中文翻译：

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阶梯码的改进解码：软辅助位标记 (SABM) 算法

阶梯码 (SCC) 通常使用迭代有界距离解码 (BDD) 和硬决策进行解码。在本文中，提出了一种新的解码算法，该算法部分使用来自信道的软信息。所提出的算法基于标记一定数量的高度可靠和高度不可靠的位。这些标记位用于提高SCC解码器的误检检测能力和BDD的纠错能力。对于具有 2 个纠错 Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem 分量码的 SCC，我们的算法在 10-7 的误码率 (BER) 下将标准 SCC 解码提高了 0.30 dB。表明所提出的算法实现了具有这种结构的精灵解码器可实现的增益的几乎一半。还讨论了由位标记和对组件 BDD 解码器的额外调用引起的增加的复杂性。我们的算法也被扩展（稍作修改）到产品代码。仿真结果表明，在这种情况下，该算法在 10−7 的 BER 下提供高达 0.5 dB 的增益。