Patent ID: 7643761

Claim:
A method of signal processing, comprising: converting an optical signal having a duty cycle greater than one into an electrical signal having an amplitude corresponding to optical power of the optical signal; sampling the electrical signal using two or more sampling windows contained within a time interval having a one-bit length to generate two or more bit estimate values, wherein sampling the electrical signal comprises: integrating the electrical signal over a first sampling window to generate a first integration result; comparing the first integration result with a first decision threshold value to generate a first bit estimate value; integrating the electrical signal over a second sampling window to generate a second integration result; and comparing the second integration result with a second decision threshold value to generate a second bit estimate value; and applying a logical function to the two or more bit estimate values to generate a bit sequence corresponding to the optical signal, wherein applying the logical function comprises applying an “AND” function to the first and second bit estimate values to generate a bit of the bit sequence.