Patent ID: 7738603

Claim:
A receiver, comprising: a decoder configured to decode a plurality of symbols, symbol decisions, and additional information signals from an equalized signal, sequentially select one of the additional information signals, and output a selected additional information signal as a soft information signal; and an equalizer configured to quantize the equalized signal in response to uniform and non-uniform boundary levels selected using the soft information signal, filter the quantized signal using the symbol decisions, and add the filtered quantized signal and a filtered input signal to generate the equalized signal; wherein the soft information signal is represented by: α=(1/ PM 00 +1/ PM 10 )−(1 /PM 01 +1 /PM 11 ) wherein α is the soft information signal, wherein PM 00 is a path metric value of a path through which the equalized signal may be merged into a state 00, wherein PM 01 is a path metric value of a path through which the equalized signal may be merged into a state 01, wherein PM 10 is a path metric value of a path through which the equalized signal may be merged into a state 10, and wherein PM 11 is a path metric value of a path through which the equalized signal may be merged into a state 11.