Channel interleaver having a constellation-based block-wise permuation module

Abstract

A channel interleaver comprises a novel constellation-based permutation module. The channel interleaver first receives a plurality of sets of encoded bits generated from an FEC encoder. The encoded bits are distributed into multiple subblocks and each subblock comprises a plurality of adjacent bits. A subblock interleaver interleaves each subblock and outputs a plurality of interleaved bits. The constellation-based permutation module rearranges the interleaved bits and outputs a plurality of rearranged bits. The rearranged bits are supplied to a symbol mapper such that a plurality of consecutively encoded bits in the same set of the encoded bits generated from the FEC encoder is prevented to be mapped onto the same level of bit reliability of a modulation symbol. In addition, the plurality of adjacent bits of each subblock is also prevented to be mapped onto the same level of bit reliability to achieve constellation diversity and to improve decoding performance.