Patent ID: 8253606

Claim:
A fractional bit encoder for encoding a data stream into code word identifiers for a physical line encoder, said fractional bit encoder comprising: (a) a (1:K) demultiplexer for de-multiplexing a received data stream into a predetermined number (K) of bit streams; (b) a first (K 1 :n) multiplexer for re-multiplexing a first number (K 1 ) of said K bit streams onto n parallel lines transporting n re-multiplexed bit streams and a second (K 2 :1) multiplexer for re-multiplexing a second number (K 2 ) of said K bit streams onto a single line transporting one further re-multiplexed bit stream, wherein n=[ld(M)] and M being a configurable number of different code word identifiers wherein Id (M) is the base-2 logarithm of M; (c) a class detector which evaluates the first n re-multiplexed bit streams to determine a class of the respective bit combination; and (d) a word encoder which encodes the respective bit combination depending on the determined class of the bit combination.