In certain aspects, a comparator includes an input stage and a regeneration stage. The input stage includes a first input circuit coupled to a first node and a second node, a first switching transistor configured to enable the first input circuit if a previous bit value is one, a second input circuit coupled to the first node and the second node, and a second switching transistor configured to enable the second input circuit if the previous bit value is zero. The regeneration stage includes a first inverter, a second inverter cross coupled with the first inverter, a first drive transistor coupled to the first inverter, wherein a gate of the first drive transistor is coupled to the second node, and a second drive transistor coupled to the second inverter, wherein a gate of the second drive transistor is coupled to the first node.

A receiver device according to an embodiment includes a equalizer, a sampler, and a controller. The equalizer receive a first signal. The equalizer boosts the first signal to output a resultant as a second signal. The sampler samples the second signal. The sampler outputs a sampling result of the second signal as a first digital signal. The controller executes adaptive processing for adapting an amount of boost of the first signal. In the adaptive processing, the controller is configured to: adjust an amount of boost for the equalizer based on inter-symbol interference of a part in the first digital signal, the part matching a data pattern of a set pattern filter; and dynamically change a pattern filter to be set according to the amount of boost for the equalizer.

Methods and systems are described for receiving an input data voltage signal at a first data decision circuit of set of pipelined data decision circuits, receiving an aggregate decision feedback equalization (DFE) correction current signal from a first analog current summation bus, the aggregate DFE correction current signal comprising a plurality of DFE tap-weighted currents from respective other data decision circuits of the set of pipelined data decision circuits, determining a data output decision value based on the received input data voltage signal and the received aggregate DFE correction current signal, and generating at least one outbound DFE tap-weighted current on at least one other analog current summation bus connected to at least one other data decision circuit of the set of pipelined data decision circuits.

A transmission apparatus includes a connector that couples a signal path to a receiver, an equalizer that performs an equalization operation on received signals to be input to the receiver via the connector, a controller that calculates a coefficient controlling an operation of the equalizer and sets the coefficient in the equalizer, and a detector that detects a mating fault of the signal path in the connector in response to the coefficient configured by the controller.

Various embodiments of the present invention solve the problem of generating intermediate-time information useable to drive ZFE adaptation (for example, in connection with a digital receiver). Further, various embodiments of the present invention increase flexibility by enabling user-specified over-peaking and/or under-peaking (i.e. configurable equalizer tuning) with respect to a ZFE convergence (or lock) criterion.

Various embodiments provide for a data sampler with built-in decision feedback equalization (DFE) and offset cancellation. For some embodiments, two or more data samplers described herein can be used to implement a data signal receiver circuit, which can use those two or more data samplers to facilitate half-rate or quarter-rate data sampling.

Transmission of baseband and carrier-modulated vector codewords, using a plurality of encoders, each encoder configured to receive information bits and to generate a set of baseband-encoded symbols representing a vector codeword; one or more modulation circuits, each modulation circuit configured to operate on a corresponding set of baseband-encoded symbols, and using a respective unique carrier frequency, to generate a set of carrier-modulated encoded symbols; and, a summation circuit configured to generate a set of wire-specific outputs, each wire-specific output representing a sum of respective symbols of the carrier-modulated encoded symbols and at least one set of baseband-encoded symbols.

A transmitter/receiver apparatus and method provide adaptive data rate fading compensation that utilize dual-polarization transmissions at a constant modulation-symbol rate over a forward-scatter radio link and that employ adaptive receiver techniques that operate efficiently at the noisy uncoded signal-to-noise ratio threshold of present-day forward-error correction codes over the range of multipath widths in such forward-scatter environments. The dual-polarization transmissions support both dual transmission and dual diversity configurations. The adaptive receiver techniques include adaptive channel matched filtering and adaptive equalizing at the modulation-symbol rate.

Methods and systems are described for generating two comparator outputs by comparing a received signal to a first threshold and a second threshold according to a sampling clock, the first and second thresholds determined by an estimated amount of inter-symbol interference on a multi-wire bus, selecting one of the two comparator outputs as a data decision, the selection based on at least one prior data decision, and selecting one of the two comparator outputs as a phase-error decision, the phase error decision selected in response to identification of a predetermined data decision pattern.

A receiver utilizes loop-unrolled decision feedback equalization (DFE). For each sample, two comparators, each configured with different thresholds, sample an input signal. The output of one of these comparators is selected and used as the output of the receiver and may be optionally input to additional DFE circuitry. The output of the other (non-selected) comparator is used to adjust an input offset voltage of that same comparator. Adjustments to the offset voltages of the comparators may be based on a statistical analysis of the respective outputs of the two comparators when not selected. Adjustments to the offset voltages of the comparators may be based on comparisons between the respective outputs of the two comparators when not selected to the outputs of a reference comparator that has been calibrated for minimal or zero offset.