This high performance core is a full featured Forward Error Correction encoder and decoder, specially designed for high speed optical networks or any other broadband applications. It is fully compliant with the 2.5 Gbps GPON standard (G.984.3) and is available for FPGA or ASIC implementation. The FEC algorithm is based on Reed-Solomon (255,239) code and consists of an encoder and decoder module. The encoder module computes 16 parity bytes and appends them on the 239 byte information block. The decoder receives the 255 bytes codeword, locates and corrects up to 8 byte errors being introduced in the transmission channel.