Patent ID: 8116365

Claim:
An equalization circuit to compensate for distortion in a received data stream, the received data stream including a plurality of phase correction groups and a plurality of data stream symbols interleaved with the plurality of phase correction groups, each of the plurality of phase correction groups including a plurality of phase correction symbols, the equalization circuit comprising: an equalizer module configured to compensate for the distortion based upon a plurality of equalizer coefficients to provide an equalized output; and a phase alignment module configured to adjust a phase of the equalized output to compensate for an unknown phase offset in at least one data stream symbol from among the plurality of data stream symbols based upon an estimation of the unknown phase offset derived from at least two phase correction groups from among the plurality of phase correction groups to provide a phase corrected signal, wherein the equalizer module is configured to adjust the plurality of equalizer coefficients based upon the phase corrected signal.