The Burst Error Processor (BEP) provides for error detection and correction for high-performance disk systems and other systems in which high-speed serial data transfer takes place. As data density and transfer rates increase in both hard and floppy disks and other storage media, error detection and correction become increasingly important. The BEP is an LSI circuit that facilitates the most common error detection and correction schemes accommodating date streams of up to 585K bit at up to 20M bits/second effective data rate.
The BEP provides a choice of four standard polynomials, including the popular 56-bit and 48-bit versions, to satisfy a broad range of applications. the device divides the data stream by the selected polynomial using the rules of algebra in polynomial fields. The resulting remainder is the check word, which is then appended to the data for writing on the disk as a record. When the record is read back, the BEP computes the syndrome for data validation. If an error is detected, the location and pattern of this burst in the data stream is determined for corrections.