Abstract: A method and system for demodulating high-order Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) signals is disclosed. In one embodiment, the system includes a cyclic prefix (CP) removal unit for removing a CP from a received signal to provide a first intermediate signal, wherein the first intermediate signal comprises a plurality of bits; a fast Fourier transform (FFT) unit configured to convert the first intermediate signal into a frequency domain; a soft de-mapper configured to derive a plurality of soft bits based on log-likelihood estimates of the plurality of bits, wherein the soft de-mapper derives each soft bit by using a single linear function to approximate each soft bit; and a decoder configured to decode a signal derived from the soft de-mapper into information.