Patent ID: 7386041

Claim:
A method of normalizing eye diagram data for a work signal to reflect performance characteristics of a data receiver to which the work signal is to be applied, the method comprising the steps of: (a) storing the eye diagram data in a first data structure having a first dimension indexed by a first collection of consecutive ordinal values each representing a time as an associated ordinal value multiplied by a time increment and also having a second dimension indexed by a second collection of consecutive ordinal values each representing a voltage as an associated ordinal value multiplied by a voltage increment; (b) re-scaling the first dimension as a first figure of merit by associating each ordinal value in the first collection with a respective quotient found by dividing a minimum time duration associated with the data receiver into the time associated with each ordinal value in the first collection; (c) re-scaling the second dimension as a second figure of merit by associating each ordinal value in the second collection with a respective quotient found by dividing a minimum voltage excursion associated with the data receiver into the voltage associated with each ordinal value in the second collection; (d) re-sampling the data in the first data structure by interpolating values stored therein to produce values corresponding to consecutive discrete steps along third and fourth dimensions of a second data structure respectively indexed by values for the first and second figures of merit, there being the same number of consecutive discrete steps in the third dimension per unit of the first figure of merit as the number of consecutive discrete steps in the fourth dimension per unit of the second figure of merit; and (e) storing the re-sampled interpolated values of step (d) in the second data structure.