Patent ID: 8483580

Claim:
An apparatus for adjusting the gain of a transimpedance amplifier (TIA) of an optical receiver (RX) module of an optical communications device based on link bit error rate (BER) measurements, the apparatus comprising: an open loop gain adjustment circuit of the optical RX module, the gain adjustment circuit being configured to adjust a gain of the TIA of the optical RX module; and a module controller of the optical RX module, the module controller receiving at least one control bit from a processing device that is external to the optical RX module, said at least one control bit being associated with a link BER measurement obtained by the external processing device, the module controller generating at least one control signal based on said at least one control bit received from the external processing device and outputting said at least one control signal to the open loop gain adjustment circuit to cause the open loop gain adjustment circuit to adjust the gain of the TIA.