Patent ID: 8150273

Claim:
An optical receiver comprising: a. an optical detector having an input that is positioned to detect an optical data signal, the optical detector generating a voltage at an output that is proportional to an optical intensity of the optical data signal; b. a differential amplifier having a data input that is electrically connected to the output of the optical detector and a decision threshold voltage signal input, the differential amplifier generating a data signal at a data output and an inverse data signal at a data_bar output; and c. a decision threshold voltage signal generator having an output that is coupled to the decision threshold voltage signal input of the differential amplifier, the decision threshold voltage signal generator measuring a difference between the data signal and the inverse data signal and generating a decision threshold voltage signal from the measurement having an amplitude that causes the differential amplifier to maintain a substantially constant differential voltage between the data signal and the inverse data signal generated by the differential amplifier that is independent of an amplitude of the data signal, thereby reducing a bit error rate during fluctuations in the intensity of the optical data signal.