MSc thesis project proposal

Investigation of a Suitable Reed Solomon Decoder for Gigabit Ethernet Reception

Project outside the university

NXP, Eindhoven
Gigabit Ethernet PHY employs Reed-Solomon encoding for error correction. The goal of this work is to investigate a suitable algorithm and implementation architecture for Gigabit PHY. Among topics to investigate is whether a �feasible� soft-input RS decoder could outperform a conventional hard-decision RS decoder in terms of Bit Error Rate (BER). This SNR gain can be used to increase robustness of the link i.e. the receiver can be resilient to more errors in the channel. Expected practical work involves implementing candidate algorithms in Matlab/Simulink and benchmarking error correction capability. This project will be a joint effort between NXP in Eindhoven (contact person Dr. Ozgun Paker, ozgun.paker@nxp.com) and the Circuits and Systems group of the Delft University of Technology.

Assignment

Milestones: i) Understand Reed-Solomon encode/decode basics, implement (in C/C++) the traditional RS decoder, compare vs. the matlab function as a reference design; ii) Study the literature and implement some of the promising low complexity algorithms in matlab and benchmark vs. the reference design (i.e. compare BER vs. SNR performance); iii) If possible derive a new algorithm or optimize an existing algorithm for lower implementation complexity, benchmark its performance and estimate implementation complexity.

Requirements

For this project, we are looking for a master student in either electrical engineering, applied physics, mathematics, computational science or any related study. Programming skills in Matlab and/or C/C++ and basic knowledge of signal processing and digital communications are highly appreciated. Good spoken and written English is a must. Expected project duration is about 9 months.

Contact

prof.dr.ir. Geert Leus

Signal Processing Systems Group

Department of Microelectronics

Last modified: 2019-04-24