Analysis and Design of Concatenated Codes

A new general concatenated code structure, containing both parallel and serially concatenated codes as special cases, is presented. The structure provides a unified framework for the analysis of concatenated codes and offers new degrees of freedom for code design. Performance analysis based on bounds on the error probability in the error floor region and suggestions for suitable design criteria are provided, together with a design approach for the waterfall region. In contrast to parallel concatenated codes and traditional serially concatenated codes, 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