A general structure for rate-compatible concatenated codes

In this letter, a general concatenated code structure is presented, encompassing both parallel and serially concatenated codes as special cases. The structure provides a unifying framework for the analysis of concatenated codes and offers new degrees of freedom for code design. Performance analysis based on error bounds in the error floor region and suggestions for suitable design criteria are provided, together with a design approach for the waterfall region. The proposed structure allows for constructing very high-rate codes with no penalty in the error floor region and good performance in the waterfall region