Improving the finite-length performance of long SC-LDPC code chains by connecting consecutive chains

We propose a novel encoding/transmission scheme called continuous chain (CC) transmission that is able to improve the finite-length performance of a system using long spatially coupled low-density parity-check (SC-LDPC) code chains. First, we show that the decoding of SC-LDPC code chains is more reliable for shorter chain lengths, i.e., the scaling between block error rate and gap to threshold is more favorable for shorter chains. This motivates the use of CC transmission in which, instead of transmitting a sequence of independent codewords from a long SC-LDPC chain, we connect multiple chains in a layered format, where encoding, transmission, and decoding are now performed in a continuous fashion. Finally, we show that CC transmission can be implemented with only a small increase in decoding complexity or delay with respect to a system employing a single SC-LDPC code chain for transmission.