Abstract
In this paper two complexity efficient soft sphere-decoder modifications are proposed for computing the max-log LLR values in iterative MIMO systems, which avoid the costly, typically needed, full enumeration and sorting (FES) procedure during the tree traversal without compromising the max-log performance. It is shown that despite the resulting increase in the number of expanded nodes, they can be more computationally efficient than the typical soft sphere decoders by avoiding the unnecessary complexity of FES.