PPU Parallelization Level

All of the most curent designs have a decoder which contains a Polynomial Processing Unit (PPU).  The PPU Parallelization Level (PPUPL) is the number of polynomial coefficients the PPU operates on simultaneously and can vary from 1 to 2t where t is the number of errors than can be corrected.  The PPUPL is not the same as the EPL or DPL.  The level of parallelism needed in the PPU depends on the performance requirements of the system.

As illustrated below, the PPU can also be implemented as a pipeline with a number of PPU Stages in the pipe.  When the PPU is implemented as a pipeline, each PPU Stage must have the maximum level of parallelism.  Pipelined PPUs are required for failure-tolerant systems.