Abstract
An unequal bit reliability soft-information storage method for communication and storage systems at least includes one storage unit having a first memory and a second memory; the most significant soft-information bits are stored in the first memory; and least significant soft-information bits are stored in the second memory. Based on the significance of each bit of the soft information with the use of the first or second memories of different reliability for storage, the complexity of the storage unit, the production cost and the power consumption can be reduced while maintaining the performance.