JFET_V2_N3_RP6 S.R. Ruckmani P. Anbalagan Journal on Future Engineering and Technology 2230 – 7184 2 3 63 71 Forward error correction, turbo decoder, parallel SOVA decoding algorithm, reducing decoding comlexity, memory usage Turbo coding is a powerful encoding and decoding technique that can provide highly reliable data transmission at extremely low signal-to-noise ratio. According to the computational complexity/delay of the employed decoding algorithms, such as maximum a posteriori algorithm (MAP), log maximum a posteriori algorithm (Log-MAP) and Soft Output Viterbi Algorithm (SOVA), the realization of turbo decoders usually takes a large amount of memory space and potentially long decoding delay. Therefore, an efficient method to reduce decoding complexity/delay becomes one of the key factors toward successfully designing turbo decoders. In this paper, reducing decoding complexity/delay of turbo decoding algorithms is approached by parallel SOVA (T-SOVA) scheme. The best schemes are presented for various variables considering trade-off between decoder performance and complexity. This method will reduce the decoding complexity/delay by at least 50% without big impact on the system performance. February - April 2007 Copyright © 2007 i-manager publications. All rights reserved. i-manager Publications http://www.imanagerpublications.com/Article.aspx?ArticleId=826