Ass.Prof.Dr.

Thamer Information Theory 4th Class in Communications

BCH Codes
The Bose, Chaudhuri, and Hocquenghem (BCH) codes form
a large class of powerful random error-correcting cyclic codes.
This class of codes is a remarkable generalization of the Hamming
codes for multiple-error correction. Binary BCH codes were
discovered by Hocquenghem in 1959 and independently by Bose
and Chaudhuri in 1960 .
For any positive integers m(m ≥ 3) and t (t< 2m-1), there
exists a binary BCH code with the following parameters:

Clearly, this code is capable of correcting any combination of

t or fewer errors in a block of n = 2 m — l digits. We call this
code a t-error-correcting BCH code.
The generator polynomial of this code is specified in terms
of its roots from the Galois field GF(2m). Let be a primitive
m
element in GF(2 ). The generator polynomial g(X) of the t-error-
correcting BCH code of length 2 m — l is the lowest-degr ee
polynomia l over GF(2) which has

….(1)

As its roots [i.e., g( i) = 0 for 1 ≤ i ≤2t. It follows that

2 2t
g(X) has , , .. ., and their conjugates as all its roots.

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Let Φi(X) be the minimal polynomial of i. Then g(X) must

be the leas t comm on m ultip le (LCM) of Φ1(X) , Φ2(X) , …..
Φ2t (X), that is,

…(2)
The generator polynomial g(X) of the binary t-error-
correcting BCH code of length 2 m — 1 given by (2) can be
reduced to

…(3)

Since the degree of each minimal polynomial is m or less,

the degree of g(X) is at most mt. That is, the number of parity-
check digits, n — k, of the code is at most equal to mt.
There is no simple formula for enumerating n — k, but if t
is small, n — k is exactly equal to mt. The parameters for all
binary BCH codes of length 2m — 1 with m ≤ 10 , are given in
Table 1. The BCH codes defined above are usually called
prim itive (or narr ow-se nse) BCH codes.

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Example 1: Let a be a primitive element of the Galois field

GF(24) given by Table 2 , such that 1 + + 4 = 0. From
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Table 3 , we find that the minimal polynomials of , , and 5

are

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It follows from (3) that the double-error-correcting BCH code of

length n = 24 — 1 = 1 5 is generated by

Thus, the code is a (15, 7) cyclic code with d m i n ≥ 5. Since the

generator polynomial is code polynomial of weight 5, the
minimum distance of this code is exactly 5.

EXAMPLE 2: The triple-error-correcting BCH code of length 15

is generated by

This triple-error-correcting BCH code is a (15, 5) cyclic code with

d m i n ≥ 7. Since the weight of the generator polynomial is 7, the
minimum distance of this code is exactly 7.

Using the primitive polynomial p (X) = 1 + X + X 6 , we

may construct the Galois field GF(26) as shown in Table 4. The
minimal polynomials of the elements in GF(26) are listed in Table

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5. Using (3), we find the generator polynomials of all the BCH

codes of length 63 as shown in Table 6.

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H matrix (i.e. the parity-check matrix) of the BCH code is

given as

…(4)
m
Note that the entries of H are elements in GF(2 ). Each element
in GF(2m) can be represented by a w-tuple over GF(2). If each
entry of H is replaced by its corresponding m-tuple over GF(2)
arranged in column form, we obtain a binary parity-check matrix
for the code.

Example 3: Consider the double-error-correcting BCH code of

length n = 2" — 1 =15. From Example 1 we know that this is a
(15, 7) code. Let be a primitive element in GF(24). Then the
parity-check matrix of this code is
Using (4) we get that:

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Using Table 2, the fact that = 1, and representing
each entry of H by its corresponding 4-tuple, we obtain
the following binary parity-check matrix for the code:

The t-error-correcting BCH code denned above indeed has

minimum distance at least 2t + 1. The parameter 2t + 1 is
usually called the desig ned d istance of the /-error-correcting
BCH code. The true minimum distance of a BCH code may or
may not be equal to its designed distance. There are many cases
where the true minimum distance of a BCH code is equal to its
designed distance. However, there are also cases where the true
minimum distance is greater than the designed distance.

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 Ass.Prof.Dr.Thamer Information Theory 4th Class in Communications

REED-SOLOMON CODES

In addition to the binary codes, there are non binary codes. In

fact, if p is a prime number and q is any power of p, there are
codes with symbols from the Galois field GF(q). These codes
are called q-ary c odes .
The special subclass of q-ary BCH codes for which s = 1 is the
most important subclass of q-ary BCH codes. The codes of this
subclass are usually called the Re ed-Solomon codes in honor of
their discoverers . A t-error-correcting Reed-Solomon code with
symbols from GF(q) has the following parameters:

We consider Reed-Solomon codes with code symbols from the

Galois field GF(2m) (i.e., q = 2m). Let be a primitive element in
GF(2m). The generator polynomial of a primitive t-error-
correcting Reed-Solomon code of length 2m — 1 is

…(5)

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The code generated by g(X) is an (n, n — 2t) cyclic code which

consists of those polynomials of degree n — 1 or less with
coefficients from GF(2m) that are multiples of g(X). Encoding of
this code is similar to the binary case.

EXAMPLE: Consider a triple-error-correcting Reed-Solomon code

with symbols from GF(24). The generator polynomial of this code
is

H.W: Find the generator polynomial g(X) for a double-error

correcting Reed- Salmon Code (RS) with GF(8) which are
generated by X3 + X2 + 1?

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