• Hyper Codes and Skew Codes are CRC-developed error-correcting code families. They are FEC codes that employ iterative decoding.
• HyperCode technology is also referred to as eTPC technology - enhanced Turbo Product Codes.
• HyperCode (eTPC) hardware encoders/decoders are available from AHA - both ICs and cores.

HyperCode Concept

The basic idea of Hyper Codes is to improve upon the performance of product codes by adding additional coding constraints (often diagonally) to a standard product code. For example, a (17,16)³ product code has d_min=8; an associated HyperCode of size (17,16)(17,16) (18,16) has d_min=14 - almost doubling the minimum distance of the basic product code, while still maintaining a very regular structure (which is important for high-speed hardware implementations).

SkewCode Concept

Skew Codes are similar in structure to Hyper Codes. Code constructions derived from standard product codes are augmented with additional sets of parity equations. They feature a great deal of parallelism that can be exploited for high-speed decoding and have straightforward data routing, in contrast to codes that have pseudo-random interleaving or connections. Unlike standard turbo product codes, extremely large minimum distances can be achieved using component codes that are composed of only single-bit parity checks. This means that Skew Codes, like Hyper Codes, may be decoded with very simple, high-speed soft-in soft-out (SISO) decoders.

References

Hyper Codes

Figure 2 of [HUN98b] summarizes HyperCode performance.

[HUN98a] A. Hunt, "Hyper-codes: High-performance low-complexity error-correcting codes", Master's Thesis, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, May 1998.
Abstract [HTML] | Full Paper [PDF 414kb]

[HUN98b] A. Hunt, S. Crozier and D. Falconer, "Hyper-codes: High-performance low-complexity error-correcting codes", Proceedings of the 19th Biennial Symposium on Communications, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, pp. 263-267, May 31-June3, 1998.
Abstract [HTML] | Full Paper [PDF 119kb]

[CRO00a_Patent] S. Crozier, A. Hunt, J. Lodge, "High-performance low-complexity error-correcting codes"
U.S. Patent 6,145,111
November 7, 2000
Abstract [HTML]

Skew Codes

[LOD00a] J. Lodge, A. Hunt, and P. Guinand, "High Code Rate Iteratively-Decodable FEC Codes with Low Complexity and High Minimum Distance", Proceedings of the 20th Biennial Symposium on Communications, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, pp. 8-12, May 28-31, 2000.
Abstract [HTML] | Full Paper [PDF 119kb]

[LOD00b] J. Lodge, A. Hunt, and P. Guinand, "High Code Rate Iteratively-Decodable FEC Codes for Applications Requiring Low Packet Error Rates", Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Turbo Codes & Related Topics, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications de Bretagne, Brest, France, pp. 117-120, September 4-7, 2000.
Abstract [HTML] | Full Paper [PDF 48kb]