METHOD OF IDENTIFYING A CORRECT DECODING CODEWORD

1 . A method of searching for candidate codewords for a telecommunications system, the method comprising:

receiving a sequence of constellation points;

producing a received FEC vector comprised of bits from the received constellation points;

comparing the received FEC vector with a plurality of candidate codewords within a Dorsch decoding process using an ordered pattern; and

terminating the search when a candidate codeword from among the plurality of candidate codewords is found residing within a predetermined range of a specified distance of the received FEC vector.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising ordering the plurality of candidate codewords according to a probability that each of the candidate codewords will occur within the predetermined range of the specified distance of the received point.

3 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising sorting the received FEC vector according to a probability of reliability of each bit position of the received FEC vector.

4 . The method of claim 3 , further comprising generating one or more candidate codewords among the plurality of candidate codewords by creating one or more perturbations to one or more first bits of a base codeword of a sorted received FEC vector.

5 . The method of claim 3 , further comprising classifying a magnitude of each bit position as a logarithmic likelihood ratio (LLR) that is calculated as a logarithm of a probability that one received bit position has one sent value divided by a probability that the one received bit has a value opposite the one sent value.

6 . The method of claim 5 , further comprising quantizing the bit positions having a highest magnitude into a fixed number of levels using a uniform integer scalar quantizer.

7 . A method of searching for candidate codewords for a telecommunications system, the method comprising:

receiving one or more constellation points;

mapping the received constellation points into a received FEC vector representing a point in an N-dimensional space;

determining whether a bit position in the codeword has a positive value or a negative value;

determining whether a corresponding position element of the received FEC vector has a positive value or a negative value;

comparing the bit position value with the corresponding position element value;

re-mapping one or more position elements onto one or more planes of a hypercube surface;

calculating a squared distance between the re-mapped received FEC vector and a candidate codeword; and

terminating the search if the comparison of the values result indicates a confidence level of the one or more constellation points that is higher than a predetermined confidence threshold.

8 . The method of claim 7 , further comprising mapping one or more received FEC vector elements to a codeword at a center of a region comprised of points that are less than a fixed square distance from the codeword.

9 . A method of searching for candidate codewords for a telecommunications system, the method comprising:

receiving a plurality of constellation points;

producing a one or more received FEC vectors comprised of bits from the received constellation points;

decoding the one or more received FEC vectors using a plurality of Dorsch decoders;

comparing the one or more received FEC vectors with a plurality of candidate codewords within a Dorsch decoding process using an ordered pattern;

releasing a best match codeword into an output buffer; and

terminating the search when a codeword is found residing within a predetermined range of a specified distance of the one or more received FEC vectors.

10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein the one or more received FEC vectors comprise a unique identifier indicating an order in which the one or more received FEC vectors is received by the plurality of Dorsch decoders.

11 . The method of claim 9 , further comprising recording, by an ordering device, an order in which the one or more received FEC vectors is received by the plurality of Dorsch decoders.

12 . The method of claim 9 , further comprising simultaneously decoding two or more received FEC vectors using two or more decoders of the plurality of Dorsch decoders.

13 . The method of claim 9 , further comprising releasing by the output buffer to a downstream receiver, best match codewords in an order in which the codewords were received.

14 . A method of searching for candidate codewords for a telecommunications system, the method comprising:

receiving one or more constellation points;

mapping the received constellation points into one or more received FEC vectors, each received FEC vector representing a point in an N-dimensional space;

decoding the one or more received FEC vectors using a plurality of Dorsch decoders;

determining whether a bit position in a candidate codeword has a positive value or a negative value;

determining whether a corresponding position element of the one or more received FEC vectors has a positive value or a negative value;

comparing the bit position value and the corresponding element position value;

re-mapping one or more position elements onto one or more planes of a hypercube surface;

calculating a squared distance between the re-mapped received FEC vector and the candidate codeword; and

terminating the search if the bit position value and the corresponding element position value indicate a confidence level of the one or more constellation points that is higher than a predetermined confidence threshold.

15 . The method of claim 14 , wherein each of the one or more received FEC vectors comprises a unique identifier indicating an order in which the one or more FEC vectors is received by the plurality of Dorsch decoders.

16 . The method of claim 14 , further comprising recording, by an ordering device, an order in which the one or more FEC vectors is received by the plurality of Dorsch decoders.

17 . The method of claim 14 , further comprising simultaneously decoding two or more received FEC vectors using two or more decoders of the plurality of Dorsch decoders.

18 . The method of claim 14 , further comprising releasing by the output buffer to a downstream receiver, best match codewords in an order in which the codewords were received.