Turbo Decoder Applications

G.hn is the name for home grid technologies defined by the International Telecommunication Unit (ITU). The recommendation G.9960 defines physical layer and system architecture while recommendation G.9961 defines the data link level. The standard defines the communication over three different types of wires: coaxial cables (cable networks), telephone lines, and power lines. G.hn systems achieve throughputs of up to 1 Gbit/s.

The standard uses a subset of the WiMAX (IEEE 802.16) LDPC codes in order to derive its own LDPC codes with different block lengths. While the WiMAX codes are defined for a block length of 2304, the G.hn standard defines seven different block lengths with a total of three different code rates (rate 1/2, rate 2/3, rate 5/6). The shortest block length is used for header information only, while all other block lengths hold payload information. The standard defines puncturing patterns to increase the code rate beyond rate 5/6. By the removal of parity bits from the highest rate codes before transmission, the code rates 16/18 and 20/21 are obtained.