All-analog decoder for a binary (18,9,5) tail-biting trellis code

An all-analog high-speed decoding technique is described which is suitable for magnetic recording (MR) and other computationally demanding applications. A decoder for a binary (18,9,5) tail-biting trellis code, which is much simpler than the codes used for MR, has been chosen to demonstrate this technique. It achieves a decoding rate of 100 Mbit/s at a single 5V power supply. The power consumption is 50mW. Higher speed can essentially be traded for higher power consumption. A comparison shows that a digital implementation is outperformed by more than two orders of magnitude in terms of speed and/or power consumption.