Multiple channel adaptive data recovery system

A method for recovering digital data from a data signal comprising:

• receiving a data signal;
• splitting the data signal into a plurality of data channel signals and a replacement channel signal;
• digitizing the plurality of data channel signals to obtain a plurality of data out signals comprising comparing the plurality of data channel signals to a data channel reference energy level to produce a plurality of intermediate data channel signals and periodically sampling the intermediate data channel signals;
• digitizing the replacement channel signal to obtain a replacement out signal comprising comparing the replacement channel signal to a replacement channel reference energy level to produce an intermediate replacement channel signal and periodically sampling the intermediate replacement channel signal;
• comparing a one of the plurality of data out signals and the replacement out signal to obtain a result;
• and
• adjusting the digitizing of the data channel signal for the one of the plurality of data out signals using the result obtained as part of the comparing of the one of the plurality of data out signals and the replacement out signal.

A method of adjusting the calibration of a data channel, the data channel being one channel of a system including a plurality of data channels and a replacement channel, each of the data channels and the replacement channel receiving a common data input stream and outputting clocked data, the system producing clocked output data for each of the data channels, the method comprising:

• determining a current sampling point for the data channel, the sampling point being defined in terms of phase and voltage;
• setting a sampling point of the replacement channel to the current sampling point for the data channel;
• replacing the output of the data channel with the output of the replacement channel;
• determining a new sampling point for the data channel;
• sampling the data channel at the new sampling point;
• and
• replacing the output of the replacement channel with the output of the data channel.

A data recovery system comprising:

• a clock recovery circuit receiving incoming data and extracting a clock signal from the incoming data;
• a processor configured to generate a voltage adjustment signal, a phase adjustment signal, and an output selection signal;
• a plurality of data channels, each of the plurality of data channels receiving incoming data and generating output data based on the clock signal extracted by the clock recovery circuit and the voltage and phase adjustment signals generated by the processor;
• an error counter examining the output data generated by each of the plurality of data channels and measuring bit error rates of each of the plurality of data channels by comparing the output data generated by each of the plurality of data channels;
• and
• an output selector selecting one of the output data generated by one of the plurality of data channels based on the output selection signal generated by the processor;
• wherein the processor receives the bit error rates of each of the plurality of data channels from the error counter and generates the output selection signal that corresponds to one of the plurality of data channels to be selected by the output selector with the lowest bit error rate, and
• the processor generates now voltage and phase adjustment signals.

A data recovery system comprising:

• a clock recovery circuit receiving incoming data and extracting a clock signal from the incoming data, the clock recovery circuit including an oscillator with a plurality of ranges set by an oscillator range selection signal;
• a processor configured to generate a voltage adjustment signal, a phase adjustment signal, and the oscillator range selection signal;
• a plurality of data channels, each of the plurality of data channels receiving incoming data and generating output data based on the clock signal extracted by the clock recovery circuit and the voltage and phase adjustment signals generated by the processor;
• and
• an error counter examining the output data generated by at least two of the plurality of data channels and measuring bit error rates of the at least two of the plurality of data channels by comparing the output data generated by the at least two of the plurality of data channels.