Early-termination techniques for polar list decoders

An apparatus for wireless communication, comprising:

• means for receiving a candidate codeword encoded using a polar code, the candidate codeword generated based at least in part on a plurality of information bits;
• means for performing a decoding process on the candidate codeword, the means for performing the decoding process comprising, for each bit channel of at least a first subset of bit channels of the polar code:
• means for determining path metrics for each of a plurality of decoding paths;
• means for determining a spread metric based at least in part on a first path metric corresponding to a first decoding path of the plurality of decoding paths and a second path metric corresponding to a second decoding path of the plurality of decoding paths;
• and
• means for terminating the decoding process based at least in part on a comparison of the spread metric to a spread metric threshold.

An apparatus for wireless communication, comprising:

• a processor;
• memory in electronic communication with the processor;
• and
• instructions stored in the memory and operable, when executed by the processor, to cause the apparatus to:
• receive a candidate codeword encoded using a polar code, the candidate codeword generated based at least in part on a plurality of information bits;
• perform a decoding process on the candidate codeword, the decoding process comprising, for each bit channel of at least a first subset of bit channels of the polar code:
• determine path metrics for each of a plurality of decoding paths;
• determine a spread metric based at least in part on a first path metric corresponding to a first decoding path of the plurality of decoding paths and a second path metric corresponding to a second decoding path of the plurality of decoding paths;
• and
• terminate the decoding process based at least in part on a comparison of the spread metric to a spread metric threshold.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing code for wireless communication, the code comprising instructions executable by a processor to:

• receive a candidate codeword encoded using a polar code, the candidate codeword generated based at least in part on a plurality of information bits;
• perform a decoding process on the candidate codeword, the instructions executable by the processor to perform the decoding process comprising, for each bit channel of at least a first subset of bit channels of the polar code, further instructions executable by the processor to:
• determine path metrics for each of a plurality of decoding paths;
• determine a spread metric based at least in part on a first path metric corresponding to a first decoding path of the plurality of decoding paths and a second path metric corresponding to a second decoding path of the plurality of decoding paths;
• and
• terminate the decoding process based at least in part on a comparison of the spread metric to a spread metric threshold.