Patent ID: 8867156

Claim:
A data processing system, the data processing system comprising: an input buffer maintaining at least a first data set and a second data set; a P-distance calculation circuit that calculates a first P-distance value based upon the first data set and a second P-distance value based upon the second data set; a data detector circuit that applies a data detection algorithm to a selected data set to yield a detected output; a selection circuit that selects one of the first data set and the second data set as the selected data set based at least in part on the first P-distance value associated with the first data set and the second P-distance value associated with the second data set; an analog to digital converter circuit that generates a series of digital samples based upon an analog input signal; an ideal value calculation circuit that calculates ideal values corresponding to the digital samples; an error value calculation circuit that calculates error values as a difference between corresponding instances of the ideal values and the digital samples; and wherein the P-distance calculation circuit includes: an absolute value calculation circuit that generates absolute values of error inputs derived from the error values; a power calculation circuit that raises the absolute values to a defined power to yield power outputs; and an accumulator circuit that aggregates the power outputs to yield the first P-distance value.