FLEXIBLE ENCODING METHOD AND ARCHITECTURE FOR HIGH SPEED DATA TRANSMISSION AND STORAGE

In data transmission and storage using encoding through finite-state machines, the feedback link that updates each finite-state machine after each encoding step presents a bottleneck for a high speed implementation. The invention solves this problem for a class of finite-state machines that includes the encoder for the known 8B/10B Widmer-Franaszek code. The architecture consists of parallel finite-state units that are pipelined to run at a relatively low clock frequency. State updating is broken down into a feedforward part and a feedback part. In the feedback part, the state of each unit can be updated with a single operation. This allows efficient implementation of the finite-state encoder for practically any data rate just by appropriate pipelining and parallel processing.