An analog 0.25 /spl mu/m BiCMOS tailbiting MAP decoder

Digital decoders play a fundamental role in extracting signals from a noisy background. Mixed-signal decoders are recently employed in applications to capture the potential of smaller size, higher speed or lower power consumption when compared to an equivalent digital implementation. Developing an all-analog decoder can further improve on these parameters. Furthermore, decoders for tailbiting convolutional codes and concatenated coding schemes (e.g., turbo codes) incorporate a closed loop which allows the development of a highly-parallel analog network. The authors describe an implementation of such an analog decoder using a 0.25 /spl mu/m BiCMOS process.