Patent ID: 7110449

Claim:
A decision feedback equalizer (DFE) for processing a data signal and providing DFE output signals, said DFE comprising: a feedforward filter (FFF) ( 10 ); a feedback filter (FBF) ( 14 ); a slicer ( 16 ), said slicer ( 16 ), said FFF ( 10 ) and said FBF ( 14 ) being mutually coupled for forming a decision feedback equalizer configuration, said equalizer configuration exhibiting concurrent hard and soft decision directed (dd) operating modes; and wherein the DFE output bit representations corresponding to both said hard and soft dd operating modes are outputted concurrently; and including a controllable multiplexer (MUX) ( 22 ) coupled to said equalizer configuration for coupling a selected one of said outputs of said DFE to the input of said slicer ( 16 ), according to the value of a selector input to said MUX ( 22 ).