Patent ID: 7017103

Claim:
A Viterbi equalizer for equalization of a data signal transmitted via a channel that is subject to interference, comprising: at least one add-compare-select unit operable to carry out, with reference to each channel state relating to a time step k, an add-compare-select operation for determining a given state transition leading, with minimal metrics, from one possible predecessor state relating to a time step k−1 to a destination state relating to the time step k; a calculation unit for calculating metric increments in advance and an output memory for storing the metric increments calculated by said calculation unit; said calculation unit being operable to: calculate the metric increments for all transitions starting from a given state relating to the time step k to the states in a time step k+1 that can in each case be achieved by the transitions; and store the metric increments in said output memory for call-up by said add-compare-select unit for carrying out the add-compare-select operations with respect to the destination states in the time step k+1.