Irregular-Mapped Protograph LDPC-Coded Modulation: A Bandwidth-Efficient Solution for 6G-Enabled Mobile Networks

The huge amount of data produced in the 6G networks not only brings new challenges to the reliability and efficiency of mobile devices but also drives rapid development of new storage techniques. With the benefits of fast access speed and high reliability, NAND flash memory has become a promising storage solution for the 6G networks. In this paper, we investigate a protograph-coded bit-interleaved coded modulation with iterative detection and decoding (BICM-ID) utilizing irregular mapping (IM) in the NAND flash-memory systems. First, we propose an enhanced protograph-based extrinsic information transfer (EPEXIT) algorithm to facilitate the analysis of protograph codes in the IM-BICM-ID systems. With the use of EPEXIT algorithm, a simple design method is conceived for the construction of a family of high-rate protograph codes, called irregular-mapped accumulate-repeat-accumulate (IMARA) codes, which possess excellent decoding thresholds and linear-minimum-distance-growth property. Furthermore, motivated by the voltage-region iterative gain characteristics of IM-BICM-ID systems, a novel read-voltage optimization scheme is developed to acquire accurate read-voltage levels, thus minimizing the decoding thresholds (in dB) of protograph codes. Analyses and simulations indicate that the proposed IMARA-aided IM-BICM-ID scheme and read-voltage optimization scheme remarkably improve the convergence and decoding performance of flash-memory systems. Thus, the proposed protograph-coded IM-BICM-ID can be viewed as a reliable and efficient storage solution for the new-generation mobile networks, such as Internet of Vehicles.