New Time-Domain Decoder for Correcting both Errors and Erasures of Reed-Solomon Codes

A new time-domain decoder for Reed-Solomon (RS) codes is proposed. Because this decoder can correct both errors and erasures without computing the erasure locator, errata locator, or errata evaluator polynomials, the computational complexity can be substantially reduced. Herein, to demonstrate this benefit, complexity comparisons between the proposed decoder and the Truong-Jeng-Hung and Lin-Costello decoders are presented. These comparisons show that the proposed decoder consistently has lower computational requirements when correcting all combinations of ${\nu}$ errors and ${\mu}$ erasures than both of the related decoders under the condition of $2{\nu}+{\mu}{\leq}d_{\min}-1$, where $d_{min}$ denotes the minimum distance of the RS code. Finally, the (255, 223) and (63, 39) RS codes are used as examples for complexity comparisons under the upper bounded condition of min $2{\nu}+{\mu}=d_{\min}-1$. To decode the two RS codes, the new decoder can save about 40% additions and multiplications when min ${\mu}=d_{min}-1$ as compared with the two related decoders. Furthermore, it can also save 50% of the required inverses for min $0{\leq}{\mu}{\leq}d_{\min}-1$.