Patent ID: 8130820

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a receiver/equalizer having M signal inputs and N signal outputs, wherein each of said N signal outputs corresponds to a respective one of N received data streams; a decoder configured to detect and decode said N signal outputs from said receiver/equalizer to reproduce said N received data streams; and an interference cancellation feedback loop configured to successively cancel interference produced in said N received data streams by decoded data stream 1 through decoded data stream N subsequent to at least one decoding of said N signal outputs by the decoder; wherein said decoder is configured to detect and decode during the at least one decoding all of said N signal outputs of the receiver/equalizer without successive interference cancellation having been performed thereon by said interference cancellation feedback loop, and to store results of said decoding of said N signal outputs; wherein said decoder is further configured to successively detect and decode, subsequent to the at least one decoding, data stream 1 through data stream N with successive interference cancellation having been performed thereon by said interference cancellation feedback loop, and to store results of said decoding of data stream 1 through data stream N; and wherein said interference cancellation feedback loop is further configured to select for use in interference cancellation the stored results of said decoding of said N signal outputs if said stored results of said decoding of said N signal outputs pass at least one error checking process and if the stored results of said decoding of data stream 1 through data stream N do not pass the at least one-error checking process.