In one embodiment, a turbo 
equalizer is selectively operable in either first or second 
modes. In the first mode, layered (low-density parity-check (LDPC)) decoding is performed on soft-output values generated by a channel 
detector, where, for each full local decoder iteration, the updates of one or more 
layers of the corresponding H-matrix are skipped. If decoding fails to converge on a valid LDPC-encoded codeword and a specified condition is met, then 
LDPC decoding is performed in a second mode, where the updates of all of the 
layers of the H-matrix are performed for each full local decoder iteration, including the one or more 
layers that were previously skipped in the first mode. Skipping one or more layers in the first mode increases 
throughput of the decoder, while updating all layers in the second mode increases error correction capabilities of the decoder.