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Because of their capacity-approaching performance and their complexity/latency advantages, spatially-coupled (SC) codes are among the most attractive error-correcting codes for use in modern dense data storage systems. SC codes are constructed by partitioning an underlying block code and coupling the partitioned components. Here, we focus on circulant-based SC codes. Recently, the optimal overlap (OO), circulant power optimizer (CPO) approach was introduced to construct high performance SC codes for additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) and Flash channels. The OO stage operates on the protograph of the SC code to derive the optimal partitioning that minimizes the number of graphical objects that undermine the performance of SC codes under iterative decoding. Then, the CPO optimizes the circulant powers to further reduce this number. Since the nature of detrimental objects in the graph of a code critically depends on the characteristics of the channel of interest, extending the OO-CPO approach to construct SC codes for channels with intrinsic memory is not a straightforward task. In this paper, we tackle one relevant extension; we construct high performance SC codes for practical 1-D magnetic recording channels, i.e., partial-response (PR) channels. Via combinatorial techniques, we carefully build and solve the optimization problem of the OO partitioning, focusing on the objects of interest in the case of PR channels. Then, we customize the CPO to further reduce the number of these objects in the graph of the code. SC codes designed using the proposed OO-CPO approach for PR channels outperform prior state-of-the-art SC codes by up to around 3 orders of magnitude in frame error rate (FER) and 1.1 dB in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). More intriguingly, our SC codes outperform structured block codes of the same length and rate by up to around 1.8 orders of magnitude in FER and 0.4 dB in SNR. The performance advantage of SC codes designed using the devised OO-CPO approach over block codes of the same parameters is not only pronounced in the error floor region, but also in the waterfall region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-binary (NB) low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes are graph-based codes that are increasingly being considered as a powerful error correction tool for modern dense storage devices. Optimizing NB-LDPC codes to overcome their error floor is one of the main code design challenges facing storage engineers upon deploying such codes in practice. Furthermore, the increasing levels of asymmetry incorporated by the channels underlying modern dense storage systems, e.g., multi-level Flash systems, exacerbate the error floor problem by widening the spectrum of problematic objects that contribute to the error floor of an NB-LDPC code. In a recent research, the weight consistency matrix (WCM) framework was introduced as an effective combinatorial NB-LDPC code optimization methodology that is suitable for modern Flash memory and magnetic recording (MR) systems. The WCM framework was used to optimize codes for asymmetric Flash channels, MR channels that have intrinsic memory, in addition to canonical symmetric additive white Gaussian noise channels. In this paper, we provide an in-depth theoretical analysis needed to understand and properly apply the WCM framework. We focus on general absorbing sets of type two (GASTs) as the detrimental objects of interest. In particular, we introduce a novel tree representation of a GAST called the unlabeled GAST tree, using which we prove that the WCM framework is optimal in the sense that it operates on the minimum number of matrices, which are the WCMs, to remove a GAST. Then, we enumerate WCMs and demonstrate the significance of the savings achieved by the WCM framework in the number of matrices processed to remove a GAST. Moreover, we provide a linear-algebraic analysis of the null spaces of WCMs associated with a GAST. We derive the minimum number of edge weight changes needed to remove a GAST via its WCMs, along with how to choose these changes. In addition, we propose a new set of problematic objects, namely oscillating sets of type two (OSTs), which contribute to the error floor of NB-LDPC codes with even column weights on asymmetric channels, and we show how to customize the WCM framework to remove OSTs. We also extend the domain of the WCM framework applications by demonstrating its benefits in optimizing column weight 5 codes, codes used over Flash channels with additional soft information, and spatially coupled codes. The performance gains achieved via the WCM framework range between 1 and nearly 2.5 orders of magnitude in the error floor region over interesting channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatially-coupled (SC) codes are a family of graph-based codes that have attracted significant attention, thanks to their capacity approaching performance and low decoding latency. An SC code is constructed by partitioning an underlying block code into a number of components and coupling their copies together. In this paper, we first introduce a general approach for the enumeration of detrimental combinatorial objects in the graph of finite-length SC codes. Our approach is general in the sense that it effectively works for SC codes with various partitioning schemes, column weights, and memories. Next, we present a two-stage framework for the construction of high performance binary SC codes optimized for the additive white Gaussian noise channels; we aim at minimizing the number of detrimental combinatorial objects in the error floor region. In the first stage, we deploy a novel partitioning scheme, called the optimal overlap partitioning, to produce the optimal partitioning corresponding to the smallest number of detrimental objects. In the second stage, we apply a new circulant power optimizer to further reduce the number of detrimental objects in the lifted graph. SC codes constructed by our new framework have up to two orders of magnitude error floor performance improvement and up to 0.6 dB SNR gain compared to prior state-of-the-art SC codes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transmission channels underlying modern dense storage systems, e.g., Flash memory and magnetic recording (MR) systems, significantly differ from canonical channels, like additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels. While existing low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes optimized for symmetric, AWGN-like channels are being actively considered for Flash applications, we demonstrate that, due to channel asymmetry, such approaches are inadequate. We introduce a refined definition of absorbing sets, which we call general absorbing sets of type two (GASTs), and study the combinatorial properties of GASTs. We then present the weight consistency matrix (WCM), which succinctly captures key properties in a GAST. Furthermore, we show how to customize the WCM definition such that it suits other special subclasses of GASTs. Based on these new concepts, we then develop a new, general combinatorial code optimization framework, which we call the WCM framework, and demonstrate its effectiveness on the realistic highly-asymmetric normal-Laplace mixture (NLM) Flash channel. Moreover, we show that our framework can be customized to optimize non-binary LDPC (NB-LDPC) codes for other asymmetric channels, channels with memory (incorporated in MR systems), and canonical symmetric channels. For all the channels we have simulated NB-LDPC codes over, the codes optimized using the WCM framework enjoy at least 1 order, and up to nearly 2 orders of magnitude performance gain in the uncorrectable bit error rate (UBER) or the frame error rate (FER) relative to the unoptimized codes. Our simulations also show that codes optimized for symmetric channels are not the best choice for asymmetric channels. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, we provide a comprehensive analysis of the error floor along with code optimization guidelines for structured and regular non-binary low-density parity-check (NB-LDPC) codes in magnetic recording (MR) applications. While the topic of the error floor performance of binary LDPC codes over additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channels has recently received considerable attention, very little is known about the error floor performance of NB-LDPC codes over other types of channels, despite the early results demonstrating superior characteristics of NB-LDPC codes relative to their binary counterparts. We first show that, due to the outer looping between the detector and the decoder in the receiver, the error profile of NB-LDPC codes over partial-response (PR) channels is qualitatively different from the error profile over AWGN channels—this observation motivates us to introduce new combinatorial objects aimed at capturing decoding errors that dominate the PR channel error floor region. We call these objects balanced absorbing sets (BASs), which are viewed as a special subclass of previously introduced absorbing sets (ASs). Aided by these new objects (BASs), we develop a method that combines analytical equations and biased simulations to predict the error floor performance of NB-LDPC codes over PR channels without the need to execute extensive Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. We show that explicitly incorporating the inter-symbol interference of MR channels into our prediction method makes the accuracy of the error floor estimate within 0.2 of an order of magnitude from the traditional MC simulation. In addition, we prove that, due to the more restrictive definition of BASs (relative to the more general class of ASs), an additional degree of freedom can be exploited in the code design for PR channels. We then demonstrate that the proposed code optimization aimed at removing dominant BASs offers performance improvements in the frame error rate in the error floor region by up to 2.5 orders of magnitude over the unoptimized designs. Our code optimization technique carefully, yet provably, removes BASs from the code while preserving its overall structure (node degree, quasi-cyclic property, regularity, and so forth). The resulting codes outperform the existing binary and NB-LDPC solutions for PR channels by about 2.5 and 1.25 orders of magnitude, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]