Patent ID: 8233523

Claim:
A system comprising: one or more residual intersymbol interference (ISI) detectors that are each configured to receive from a decision feedback equalizer (DFE) a data signal or an error signal comprising residual ISI and produce a first output signal indicating whether the residual ISI has a positive sign or a negative sign; one or more column balancers that are each configured to receive the one or more first output signals from the one or more ISI detectors and select from among the first output signals one of the first output signals to produce a second output signal; and one or more weight selectors that are each configured to: receive one of the one or more second output signals from the one or more column balancers; access from among a plurality of weight values one of the weight values for the received one of the second output signals, the accessed one of the weight values: corresponding to all three of: the column balancer that produced the second output signal; the residual ISI detector that produced the selected one of the first output signals to produce the second output signal; and the sign of the residual ISI indicated by the selected one of the first output signals to produce the second output signal; and having a magnitude that is dependent on the sign of the residual ISI indicated by the selected one of the first output signals to produce the second output signal; and produce a third output signal based on the accessed one of the weight values and the sign of the residual ISI indicated by the selected one of the first output signals to produce the second output signal, the third signal being usable in producing one or more fourth output signals representing one or more control variables for one or more equalizers.