Patent ID: 6877117

Claim:
An optical signal receiver, comprising: a photodetector optically coupled to a fiber optic network; said photodetector converting an optical signal received from the fiber optic network to an electrical input data signal; a comparator operatively coupled to said photodetector and to a decision threshold input port; said comparator comparing the electrical input data signal to a decision threshold signal to provide a digital output data signal; an error detection and correction circuit operatively coupled to said comparator; said error detection and correction circuit detecting errors in the digital output data signal and correcting detected errors in the digital output data signal; said error detection and correction circuit also providing an error signal representative of a number of corrected “1”s and a number of corrected “0”s in the output data signal; and a control circuit operatively coupled to said error detection and correction circuit and to the decision threshold input port of said comparator; said control circuit calculating a relative percentage error indicator based on the error signal and adjusting the decision threshold signal in response to the relative percentage error indicator.