Patent ID: 8837656

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving an electrical signal having an amplitude range at a specialized non-uniform analog-to-digital converter, wherein the electrical signal was generated through optical-to-electrical conversion of an optical signal; dividing, at the specialized non-uniform analog-to-digital converter, the amplitude range of the electrical signal into a plurality of subintervals to determine amplitude subintervals, wherein each of the amplitude intervals is assigned one of a plurality of weighting values; sampling, at the specialized non-uniform analog-to-digital converter, the amplitude of the electrical signal twice within a bit interval to generate first and second amplitude samples; determining, at the specialized non-uniform analog-to-digital converter, within which amplitude subintervals each of the first and second amplitude samples fall; converting, at the specialized non-uniform analog-to-digital converter, the first and second samples into first and second weighting values corresponding to the amplitude subintervals within which the first and second amplitude samples fall; generating, at a phase detector, a phase detector output based on the first and second weighting values; filtering the phase detector output with a loop filter to generate a filtered output provided to a voltage controlled oscillator; and generating, with the voltage controlled oscillator, a clock signal having a fixed phase relationship to the electrical signal.