Polar Codes for Data Storage

Warren J. Gros

McGill University, Canada

Abstract
Polar codes are a new class of error-correcting codes that provably achieve the capacity of memoryless channels with low complexity encoding and decoding algorithms. In this work, we survey the literature and investigate the suitability of polar codes to data storage applications focusing on error-correction performance and throughput. We show that polar codes meet the criteria for such applications and highlight the work required before practical data storage systems can utilize these codes.

Biography

Warren J. Gross received the B.A.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, in 1996, and the M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1999 and 2003, respectively. Currently, he is an Associate Professor with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada. His research interests are in the design and implementation of signal processing systems and custom computer architectures.

Dr. Gross serves as Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing. Dr. Gross is currently Vice-Chair of the IEEE Signal Processing Society Technical Committee on Design and Implementation of Signal Processing Systems. He served as Technical Program Co-Chair of the IEEE Workshop on Signal Processing Systems (SiPS 2012) and as Chair of the IEEE ICC 2012 Workshop on Emerging Data Storage Technologies. Dr. Gross served on the Program Committees of the IEEE Workshop on Signal Processing Systems, the IEEE Symposium on Field-Programmable Custom Computing Machines, the International Conference on Field-Programmable Logic and Applications and as the General Chair of the 6th Annual Analog Decoding Workshop. Dr. Gross is a Senior Member of the IEEE and a licensed Professional Engineer in the Province of Ontario.