Patent ID: 7941738

Claim:
A method for characterizing a bit detection event within a read period of said bit wherein several read periods are sub-divided in a same fashion into a fixed number of elementary time intervals defined by a difference between a frequency corresponding to the read period and a frequency according to which a bit detection is timed, the method comprising: /a/ identifying a first elementary time interval for which a probability that a bit detection event occurs within said first interval is non-zero; /b/ starting from said first elementary time interval, selecting by a selection circuit a time window comprising several successive elementary time intervals, said time window being shorter than a read period and containing a large proportion of the detection events; /c/ repeating the bit several times in an identical fashion within corresponding read periods, and counting by a counting circuit the number of times where a bit is detected during each elementary time interval situated within the window, wherein no counting of detected bit is carried out for an elementary time interval situated outside said window, and generating an output from results of the counting operations carried out for the elementary intervals situated within the window which characterize a part of a statistical distribution of the bit detection events within the read periods.