US Patent 7461328 Efficient decoding

Embodiments of a method and apparatus for decoding signals are disclosed. The method includes receiving modulated signals, generating bits representing the signals, and associated reliability of each bit. The method further includes executing a first stage of decoding the bits using a first component code, and simultaneously executing the first stage of decoding again using a second component code, and executing a second stage of decoding using the first component code. The first and second stages of decoding are used to generate the bit stream.