Patent ID: 8498217

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, by an Ethernet PHY, a signal from a physical channel; processing the received signal at an equalizer to compensate for distortion introduced by the physical channel, thereby generating an equalizer output signal; receiving, by the Ethernet PHY, a common mode signal from the physical channel; determining a signal for generating an estimate signal that approximates interference present in the received signal from a selected signal chosen from (1) the common mode signal, (2) the equalizer output signal, and (3) a resulting signal that is a difference between the equalizer output signal and a decision output signal of a slicer circuit component, wherein the common mode signal is chosen when present; the equalizer output signal is alternatively chosen when the strength of the interference meets or is above a designated threshold value and the common mode signal is not present; and the resulting signal is alternatively chosen when the strength of the interference is below a designated threshold value and the common mode signal is not present; processing the selected signal to isolate the interference and generate a quadrature-phase signal; utilizing the phase-quadrature signal to generate the estimate signal that approximates interference present in the received signal; and subtracting the estimate signal from the equalizer output signal, thereby generating a corrected equalizer output signal, wherein the corrected equalizer output signal is tapped to an input of a slicer circuit component in the Ethernet PHY.