A logarithmic upper bound on the minimum distance of turbo codes

We derive new upper bounds on the minimum distance, which turbo codes can maximally attain with the optimum interleaver of a given length. The new bounds grow approximately logarithmically with the interleaver length, and they are tighter than all previously derived bounds for medium-length and long interleavers. An extensive discussion highlights the impacts of the new bounds in the context of interleaver design and provides some new design guidelines.