Patent ID: 8712254

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: an input to receive an optical signal from an optical communication channel; an optical to electrical interface circuitry to process the optical signal to generate an electrical signal; an analog to digital converter (ADC) to sample the electrical signal to generate a first digital signal; an electronic dispersion compensation (EDC) circuitry, coupled to the ADC, that, in an electronic domain, is configured to: process the first digital signal, via a feed forward equalizer (FFE), to generate a first digital signal output; sum, via a summer circuitry, the first digital signal output with a first feedback signal and a second feedback signal to generate a summed signal, wherein a first decision feedback equalizer (DFE) circuitry processes a hard estimate to produce the first feedback signal, and a second DFE circuitry processes a reconstructed signal to produce the second feedback signal; generate the hard estimate, via a hard limiter circuitry, corresponding to the summed signal; generate a second digital signal emulative of the optical signal based on the first digital signal and the second feedback signal; and equalize the second digital signal to compensate for at least one deficiency corresponding to the optical signal; and a reconstruction circuitry to process the hard estimate to generate the reconstructed signal, the reconstruction circuitry including: a precoding circuitry to process the hard estimate to generate a precoded signal; and a duobinary encoding circuitry, coupled to the precoding circuitry, to process the precoded signal to generate the reconstructed signal.