Patent ID: 8036260

Claim:
An equalizer, comprising: a feedback combiner configured to combine an input signal and a single feedback signal to produce a first interim signal; a delay line configured to delay the first interim signal to produce a second interim signal; a feed-forward combiner configured to combine the second interim signal and a single feed-forward signal to produce an output signal; an interim decision circuit configured to extract a value of a sign bit from the first interim signal, the sign bit having one of a first or a second value; first through N th feedback elements, each configured to generate an i th feedback sum value based on: (1) the sign bit, (2) an (i−1) th feedback sum value, and (3) an i th feedback coefficient, wherein the i th feedback sum value is the (i−1) th feedback sum value minus the i th feedback coefficient when the sign bit has the first value, and wherein the first feedback sum value is the (i−1) th feedback sum value plus the i th feedback coefficient when the sign bit has the second value; first through M th feed-forward elements, each configured to generate a j th feed-forward sum value based on: (1) the sign bit, (2) a (j+1) th feed-forward sum value, and (3) a j th feed-forward coefficient, wherein the j th feed-forward sum value is the (j+1) th feed-forward sum value minus the j th feed-forward coefficient when the sign bit has the first value, and wherein the j th feed-forward sum value is the (j+1) th feed-forward sum value plus the j th feed-forward coefficient when the sign bit has the second value; wherein a 0 th feedback sum value is a first null value, wherein an (M+1) th feed-forward sum value is a second null value, wherein M is an integer greater than one, wherein N is an integer greater than one, wherein i is an index value that ranges from 1 to N, wherein j is an index value that ranges from 1 to M, wherein the single feedback signal is equal to the N th feedback sum value, and wherein the single feed-forward signal is equal to the first feed-forward sum value.