Patent ID: 7715323

Claim:
A method for tuning at least one link channel in a high-speed SerDes cable link linking a local side physical layer to a remote side physical layer, comprising the steps of: initiating an operational state of high-speed SerDes cable link interface; identifying flow-control packet Op codes available for monitoring said at least one link channel in the high-speed SerDes cable link; using the identified Op codes in a flow-control setup packet to define an interval in which bit errors are to be monitored and collected by the remote side physical layer, and link channels for which the monitoring is to be conducted; transmitting a flow control signal from the local side physical layer to the remote side physical layer to monitor a bit error rate (BER) for each link channel used by the local side physical layer to transfer data to the remote side physical layer; monitoring the BER for each link channel used for data transfer in accordance with the flow control signal; generating BER data from the flow control signal; monitoring eye characteristics for each link channel to select a best BER data for each channel; transferring the BER data to the local side physical layer; and processing the BER data at the local side physical layer to generate equalization setting adjustments for each link channel; and adjusting each link channel in the high-speed SerDes cable link with the generated equalization setting adjustments for each link channel.