In many channels, the transmitted signals do not only face noise, but offset mismatch as well. In the prior art, maximum likelihood (ML) decision criteria have already been developed for noisy channels suffering from signal independent offset. In this paper, such ML criterion is considered for the case of binary signals suffering from Gaussian noise and signal dependent offset. The signal dependency of the offset signifies that it may differ for distinct signal levels, i.e., the offset experienced by the zeroes in a transmitted codeword is not necessarily the same as the offset for the ones. Besides the ML criterion itself, also an option to reduce the complexity is considered. Further, a brief performance analysis is provided, confirming the superiority of the newly developed ML decoder over classical decoders based on the Euclidean or Pearson distances.

Maximum likelihood (ML) decision criteria have been developed for channels suffering from signal independent offset mismatch. Here, such criteria are considered for signal dependent offset, which means that the value of the offset may differ for distinct signal levels rather than being the same for all levels. An ML decision criterion is derived, assuming uniform distributions for both the noise and the offset. In particular, for the proposed ML decoder, bounds are determined on the standard deviations of the noise and the offset which lead to a word error rate equal to zero. Simulation results are presented confirming the findings.

Data storage systems may not only be disturbed by noise. In some cases, the error performance can also be seriously degraded by offset mismatch. Here, channels are considered for which both the noise and offset are bounded. For such channels, Euclidean distance-based decoding, Pearson distance-based decoding, and Maximum Likelihood decoding are considered. In particular, for each of these decoders, bounds are determined on the magnitudes of the noise and offset intervals which lead to a word error rate equal to zero. Case studies with simulation results are presented confirming the findings.

Reliability is a critical issue for modern multi-level cell memories. We consider a multi-level cell channel model such that the retrieved data is not only corrupted by Gaussian noise, but hampered by scaling and offset mismatch as well. We assume that the intervals from which the scaling and offset values are taken are known, but no further assumptions on the distributions on these intervals are made. We derive maximum likelihood (ML) decoding methods for such channels, based on finding a codeword that has closest Euclidean distance to a specified set defined by the received vector and the scaling and offset parameters. We provide geometric interpretations of scaling and offset and also show that certain known criteria appear as special cases of our general setting.