Patent ID: 8478554

Claim:
A method comprising: sampling, using a first normal data sampler, a first value received as a first portion of a signal on a data input line; sampling, using a second normal data sampler, a second value received as a second portion of the signal on the data input line; modifying phase or DC offsets for the first or second portion of the signal; sampling, using an eye monitor data sampler, a third value from the first or second portion of the signal based on the modified phase or DC offsets; identifying an amount of delay to use to correct for clock skew between an eye monitor clock driven by the eye monitor data sampler and a normal clock driven by both the first normal data sampler and the second normal data sampler; outputting an indication of the delay to use with the third value for comparing clocks; comparing the first value and the third value, the comparison using the indicated delay; outputting an indication of whether the first value matches the third value; comparing the second value and the third value, the comparison using the indicated delay; and outputting an indication of whether the second value matches the third value.