Patent ID: 7706460

Claim:
A demodulator for recovering a transmitted symbol represented by a received quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signal, the demodulator comprising: a QAM-decoding block operable to map a received signal vector onto a constellation so as to yield a first symbol, and identify a next-most probable second symbol based upon the signal vector; and a selection unit operable to select, among the first and second symbols, the one having a lower error content as corresponding to the transmitted symbol; wherein the QAM-decoding block includes at least two decoders operable to produce at least first and second bit streams corresponding to the first and second symbols, respectively; and the selection unit includes at least two error-checking units operable upon the first and second bit streams; and logic to select the one of the first and second bit streams having the lower error content as corresponding to the transmitted symbol.