Method and apparatus for determining codeword interleaver parameters

1. A modem having shared and discrete components forming a transmit path and a receive path configured to couple to a communication medium for establishing a communication channel thereon, and the modem comprising:

a forward error correction (FEC) encoder component on the transmit path, and the FEC encoder component having configurable codeword length ‘N’ and redundancy ‘R’ parameters for the FEC encoding of the communication channel into codewords;

an interleaver component coupled to the FEC encoder component for interleaving the codewords, and the interleaver component having configurable interleaver block length ‘I’ and interleaver depth ‘M’ parameters; and

a processor coupled to the transmit and receive path components including the FEC encoder and interleaver components and the processor configured to characterize a FEC codeword and interleaver solution space in terms of a quadratic formula for latency which expresses interleaver block length ‘I’ as a function of the interleaver depth parameter ‘M’ from which expression targeted portions of the solution space may be identified prior to evaluation of the magnitude of the coefficients of the corresponding nodes thereof for compliance with communication channel performance constraints.

2. A modem having shared and discrete components forming a transmit path and a receive path configured to couple to a communication medium for establishing a communication channel thereon, and the modem comprising:

a forward error correction (FEC) encoder component on the transmit path, and the FEC encoder component having configurable codeword length ‘N’ and redundancy ‘R’ parameters for the FEC encoding of the communication channel into codewords;

an interleaver component coupled to the FEC encoder component for interleaving the codewords, and the interleaver component having configurable interleaver block length ‘I’ and interleaver depth ‘M’ parameters; and

a processor coupled to the transmit and receive-path components including the FEC encoder and interleaver components and the processor configured to characterize a FEC codeword and interleaver solution space in terms of a minimum value for the interleaver depth parameter ‘M’ based on at least one of a minimum required impulse noise protection constraint and a maximum interleaver block size constraint from which expression targeted portions of the solution space may be identified prior to evaluation of the magnitude of the coefficients of the corresponding nodes thereof for compliance with communication channel performance constraints.

3. A modem having shared and discrete components forming a transmit path and a receive path configured to couple to a communication medium for establishing a communication channel thereon, and the modem comprising:

a forward error correction (FEC) encoder component on the transmit path, and the FEC encoder component having configurable codeword length ‘N’ and redundancy ‘R’ parameters for the FEC encoding of the communication channel into codewords;

an interleaver component coupled to the FEC encoder component for interleaving the codewords, and the interleaver component having configurable interleaver block length ‘I’ and interleaver depth ‘M’ parameters; and

a processor coupled to the transmit and receive path components including the FEC encoder and interleaver components and the processor configured to characterize a FEC codeword and interleaver solution space in terms of a maximum value for the interleaver depth parameter ‘M’ based on a maximum FEC overhead constraint, from which expression targeted portions of the solution space may be identified prior to evaluation of the magnitude of the coefficients of the corresponding nodes thereof for compliance with communication channel performance constraints.

4. A method for codeword interleaver parameter determination in a modem configured to couple to a communication medium for establishing a communication channel thereon; and the method comprising:

providing a forward error correction (FEC) encoder having configurable codeword length ‘N’ and redundancy ‘R’ parameters for the FEC encoding of the communication channel into codewords;

providing an interleaver for interleaving the codewords provided by the FEC encoder, and the interleaver having configurable interleaver block length ‘I’ and interleaver depth ‘My parameters; and

characterizing a FEC codeword and interleaver solution space in terms of expressions from which targeted portions of the solution space may be identified prior to evaluation of the magnitude of the coefficients of the corresponding nodes thereof for compliance with communication channel performance constraints,

wherein the characterizing act further comprises:

characterizing the FEC codeword and interleaver solution space in terms of a quadratic formula for latency which expresses interleaver block length ‘I’ as a function of interleaver depth parameter ‘M’.

5. A method for codeword interleaver parameter determination in a modem configured to couple to a communication medium for establishing a communication channel thereon; and the method comprising:

providing a forward error correction (FEC) encoder having configurable codeword length ‘N’ and redundancy ‘R’ parameters for the FEC encoding of the communication channel into codewords;

providing an interleaver for interleaving the codewords provided by the FEC encoder, and the interleaver having configurable interleaver block length ‘I’ and interleaver depth ‘My parameters; and

characterizing a FEC codeword and interleaver solution space in terms of expressions from which targeted portions of the solution space may be identified prior to evaluation of the magnitude of the coefficients of the corresponding nodes thereof for compliance with communication channel performance constraints,

wherein the characterizing act further comprises:

characterizing the FEC codeword and interleaver solution space in terms of a minimum value for the interleaver depth parameter ‘M’ based on at least one of a minimum required impulse noise protection constraint and a maximum interleaver block size constraint, prior to evaluation of the magnitude of the coefficients of the corresponding nodes thereof for compliance with communication channel performance constraints.

6. A method for codeword interleaver parameter determination in a modem configured to couple to a communication medium for establishing a communication channel thereon; and the method comprising:

providing a forward error correction (FEC) encoder having configurable codeword length ‘N’ and redundancy ‘R’ parameters for the FEC encoding of the communication channel into codewords;

providing an interleaver for interleaving the codewords provided by the FEC encoder, and the interleaver having configurable interleaver block length ‘I’ and interleaver depth ‘My parameters; and

characterizing a FEC codeword and interleaver solution space in terms of expressions from which targeted portions of the solution space may be identified prior to evaluation of the magnitude of the coefficients of the corresponding nodes thereof for compliance with communication channel performance constraints,

wherein the characterizing act further comprises:

characterizing the FEC codeword and interleaver solution space in terms of a maximum value for the interleaver depth parameter ‘M’ based on a maximum FEC overhead constraint, prior to evaluation of the magnitude of the coefficients of the corresponding nodes thereof for compliance with communication channel performance constraints.

7. The modem of claim 1 , wherein the processor is further configured, if the performance constraints are satisfied, setting values of one or more of the parameters ‘N’, ‘R’, ‘I’ and ‘M’ using the characterized solution space.

8. The modem of claim 2 , wherein the processor is further configured, if the performance constraints are satisfied, setting values of one or more of the parameters ‘N’, ‘R’, ‘I’ and ‘M’ using the characterized solution space.

9. The modem of claim 3 , wherein the processor is further configured, if the performance constraints are satisfied, setting values of one or more of the parameters ‘N’, ‘R’, ‘I’ and ‘M’ using the characterized solution space.

10. The method of claim 4 , further comprising:

if the performance constraints are satisfied, setting values of one or more of the parameters ‘N’, ‘R’, ‘I’ and ‘M’ using the characterized solution space.

11. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:

if the performance constraints are satisfied, setting values of one or more of the parameters ‘N’, ‘R’, ‘I’ and ‘M’ using the characterized solution space.

12. The method of claim 6 , further comprising:

if the performance constraints are satisfied, setting values of one or more of the parameters ‘N’, ‘R’, ‘I’ and ‘M’ using the characterized solution space.