An FSM-coder hardware is described. In one embodiment, the present invention provides a method of encoding that includes creating an interval based on a finite state machine (FSM) state. The interval comprises a pair of subintervals having endpoints. The method also includes selecting one of the pair of subintervals based on whether the input bit is in a most probable state, and outputting zero or more bits corresponding to bits that match between endpoints of said one subinterval that occur from the most significant bits to, and not including, the first non-matching bits between the endpoints of said one subinterval.