Modified trellis decoding of simple product codes and their error performance in Gaussian channels

Previously proposed trellis decoding of array codes cannot be applied to simple product codes having any number of rows and columns. A modified scheme is proposed that can be used with all square and rectangular codes. It is illustrated by simulation study, that using soft decision trellis decoding we can correct a number of errors approaching 3 dmin and that even hard decision trellis decoding corrects errors in excess of dmin. The performance curves of a wide range of product codes are presented and compared