Patent ID: 7764732

Claim:
A zero-forcing (ZF) decision-feedback equalizer (DFE) comprising: a data section having an input to accept input data and an output to provide output data, the data section including a feedforward equalizer (FFE) data path, a DFE data path, and a data slicer; a control section including: a residual intersymbol interference (ISI) correlator having inputs to accept the output data and an error signal, the residual ISI correlator including a plurality of ZF correlators to form estimates of residual ISI estimates in the form of residual pre-cursor ISI coefficients and residual post-cursor ISI coefficients; an adaptive error slicer with an input to accept the residual ISI estimates and an output to supply a modified error signal to subtract residual ISI in response to the residual ISI estimates; wherein the FFE correlator accepts the modified error signal to subtract residual ISI, and uses a “sign/sign” algorithm to update FFE tap weights; and, wherein the DFE correlator accepts the modified error signal to subtract residual ISI, and uses a “sign/sign” algorithm to update DFE tap weights.