Abstract This paper presents a novel architecture of a soft Non-Binary Low Density Parity Check (NB-LDPC) decoder for joint iterative Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) receivers. The proposed architecture implements a single variable node processor where the Log Likelihood Ratio (LLR) computation block is removed. It also implements a single Check Node (CN) processor that is composed of six Elementary Check Nodes. The architecture is able to decode the rate R=1/2 with frame length N= 384Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) code using a 64 QAM modulation. To our knowledge, it is the first soft decoder architecture that implements the belief propagation algorithm based on vertical shuffle schedule. Synthesis results show that the proposed architecture consumes 6.476 K slices and runs at a maximum clock frequency of 70 MHz. Taking only the decoding process part alone, 188 clock cycles are required to perform decoding iterations.

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[12] Telatar E., “Capacity of Multi-Antenna Gaussian Channels,” Transactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologies, vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 585-595, 1999. Ali Haroun received his Bachelor's degree in Physics-Electronics in 2008 from the Lebanese University, Beirut, and his M.S. Degree in Signal Telecom Image Speech in 2010 from the Doctoral School of Sciences and Technology (Lebanese University), Beirut. He received his PhD in Sciences and Technology of Information and Communications in 2014 from Telecom Bretagne (Institute Mines Telecom), Brest, France. Then, he was a post-doctoral fellow at INP, Bordeaux, France. His research activities concernedChannel detection of MIMO systems, Channel Coding /Decoding of NB-LDPC and Analog to digital converter. He is a member of reviewing boards of a number of IEEE journals and Conferences. In 2017, he joined the International University of Beirut-BIU, Beirut, where he is currently an Associate Professor in the Computer and Communication Engineering Department. Hussein Sharafeddin received his B.E. degree in computer and communications engineering in 1990 from the American University of Beirut. He received his M.S. degree in computer engineering from the Ohio State University, Columbus in 1995. Dr.Sharafeddinspent more than 10 years working for IBM in New York. He received his PhD degree in computer and systems engineering in 2009 together with a master’s in applied mathematics from RPI, Troy, NY. His research focused on 3D image analysis. Dr.Sharafeddin is currently with the Faculty of Sciences at the Lebanese University, Lebanon. Ali Al Ghouwayel received his B.E. degree in Physics-Electronics in 2002 from the Lebanese University, Beirut, his M.S. Degree in Telecommunication in 2004 from the National School of Engineering of Brest, France, and his PhD in Signal Processing and Telecommunications in 2008 from the High School of Electricity and University of Rennes 1, Rennes, France. In 2008, He joined the Lab- STICC laboratory in Lorient, France and worked as a Post-Doctoral researcher on the European Project DAVINCI. In 2010, He joined the Lebanese International University, Beirut, where he is currently an Associate Professor in the Computer and Communication Engineering Department. His current research interests include Study and Optimization Algorithm-Architecture for Hardware Implementation of Non-Binary LDPC decoders, Design of Reconfigurable Ultra-Throughput RateArchitectures for 5G Systems, and ultra-low power transmission techniques for future IoT system.