VHDL Implementation of Reed-Solomon FEC architecture for high-speed optical communications

Abstract

In the quest to achieve high data rates, several 100 Gbps Ethernet standards for backplane, copper cables and fiber optic that include forward error correction based on Reed–Solomon (RS) codes have been recently approved. This thesis work presents the design and implementation of a high-throughput Reed-Solomon RS(255, 239) decoder architecture suitable for those standards. Various error correction decoders have been formulated through algorithmic transformations of the inversionless Berlekamp Massey algorithm (IBMA). In this work, a Key Equation Solver (KES) based on the modified enhanced Parallel Inversionless Berlekamp Massey algorithm (ePIBMA) is used. Hardware implementation results are presented for the RS(255, 239) codes over GF(28) that reach 106.03 Gbps when implemented in a 65nm CMOS process. Finally, post synthesis the timing, area and power estimates generated are also presented.