Patent ID: 7881616

Claim:
An optical transceiver comprising the following: a receive path comprising an opto-electric transducer configured to convert a received optical signal into a received electrical signal, and a post-amplifier configured to process the received electrical signal; a transmit path comprising an electro-optic transducer driver configured to generate an electrical transmit signal, and an electro-optic transducer configured to convert the electrical transmit signal into an optical transmit signal; a configurable switch array capable of selectively connecting and disconnecting a node in the receive path between the opto-electric transducer and the post-amplifier with a node in the transmit path between the electro-optic transducer driver and the electro-optic transducer; a memory capable of having microcode written to it, wherein the microcode is structured to cause the optical transceiver to initiate operation in loop back mode by performing the following: an act of controlling the configurable switch array.