Patent ID: 7609980

Claim:
An optical receiver comprising: a pre-amplifying unit that performs voltage conversion and amplification of an output of a light-receiving element that receives a light signal and converts the received light signal into a current signal; and a regenerating unit including a discriminating circuit that receives an output signal of the pre-amplifying unit as an input signal and performs a signal discrimination of the input signal based on a threshold generated based on the input signal, wherein the pre-amplifying unit includes a first average detecting circuit that detects an average of output signals of the pre-amplifying unit, and controls an amplification gain based on a result of comparison between an output of the first average detecting circuit and a predetermined reference voltage, the regenerating unit further includes a second average detecting circuit that detects an average of input signals to the discriminating circuit, and the discriminating circuit receives an output of the second average detecting circuit as the threshold for signal discrimination of the input signal.