A semi-analytical approach for assessing the performance of a concatenated code

A method for obtaining error probabilities of a serially concatenated code that uses a Reed-Solomon code as the outer code is discussed. The idea of the semi-analytical approach is that in a concatenated code the error rate between the two decoders is much larger than that at the outer decoder output provided the entire coding works properly. Therefore, we are able to simulate a statistically significant number of error events at the inner decoder output even if the outer decoder output occurs as completely error free. As a result, very accurate estimates of error probabilities can be attained with relative simplicity and the method suits well for the cases where BER at the outer decoder output is far too small to be simulated