Soft decoding of several classes of array codes

The potential of using various classes of MDS array codes as LDPC codes is examined. These codes include the BR code, a modified EVENODD code, and the X-code. The algebraic structures of the array codes can enable more efficient encoding and decoding in terms of memory space and computation time. Experimental results show iterative decoding of these array codes provides comparable or slightly better error correction performance than a regular LDPC code with similar parameters. In addition, these codes can be decoded as array codes.