Patent ID: 8675722

Claim:
A method of equalizing an input signal received from a communications channel, comprising the steps of: generating at least one sampling from the received input signal based on a sampling clock signal, the generation of which is not dependent on timing information associated with the communications channel and independent of a clock signal used in a clock and data recovery operation associated with the received input signal; and compensating for distortion associated with the communications channel based on at least a portion of the at least one generated sampling, wherein the sampling generation step further comprises the steps of generating multiple phases of the sampling clock signal, wherein the multiple phases are spaced from each other by a fraction of one bit time period, and validating the at least one generated sampling, and wherein the validating step further comprises the steps of: generating leading edge samples by sampling the received input signal, via a first plurality of latches, at each of the multiple phases of the sampling clock signal from a first plurality of delay elements; generating trailing edge samples by sampling the received input signal, via a second plurality of latches, at each of the multiple phases of the sampling clock signal from a second plurality of delay elements; varying an eye center threshold to determine the validity of the at least one generated sampling, wherein the eye center threshold is a value to which an amplitude value of an input pulse is compared; and generating eye center samples by sampling the received input signal, via a third plurality of latches, at each of the multiple phases of the sampling clock signal from a third plurality of delay elements, wherein the eye center threshold is an input to each latch of the third plurality of latches.