Patent ID: 7729874

Claim:
A method for calibrating a cable for transmitting differential signals, the cable including a boost device for equalizing the differential signals, the boost device having adjustable parameters and a parameter memory, the method comprising the steps of: sending a differential data signal into the cable; sending a trigger to the boost device; performing a training run in the boost device, including performing at least two evaluation runs with different settings of the adjustable parameters and evaluating the results with each of the at least two settings, retaining the best settings; and storing the best settings in the parameter memory; wherein each evaluation run comprises: processing the differential data signal into an equalized signal; and generating a preprocessed signal, which is a digital representation of the equalized signal; and wherein the step of evaluating the results includes: determining a run length of contiguous “1” or “0” samples in the digital representation of the equalized signal within a window of at least one bit period; counting numbers of occurrences of selected run lengths during an observation period of “N” bits; storing the counted numbers of occurrences in counters according to the selected run lengths; and processing outputs of the counters into a Quality Number indicating the quality of the equalized signal.