High-speed serial data communication system

A receiver apparatus comprising a receiver circuit comprising:

• means for receiving a first and second signal from a transmitter circuit via parallel signal carriers;
• means for recovering a clock signal by detecting and combining signal transitions of the first and second signal;
• and
• means for recovering a data message from the first and/or the second signal;
• characterized in that the receiver circuit is operative to determine whether substantially at a data bit boundary, as derived from the recovered clock signal, a transition occurred in the first or the second signal and to determine that a data item with a first value has been received if a transition occurred in the first signal and that a data item with a different second value has been received if a transition occurred in the second signal.

A method of serially communicating between at least one transmitter circuit and at least one receiver circuit interconnected via a communication medium;

• the communication medium providing at least a first and a second parallel signal carrier for transporting a respective first and second signal from the transmitter circuit to the receiver circuit;
• wherein the method comprises:
• in synchronization with a clock signal, serially encoding a combination of the clock signal and data items(s) of a data message as the first and second signal such that at a data item boundary a signal transition occurs in either the first or the second signal;
• wherein the encoding comprises causing a transition of the first signal at a data item boundary preceding data item d of the data message if a function f(d) of the data item d has a first value and causing a transition of the second signal at the data item boundary if the function f(d) has a different second value;
• outputting the first and second signal from the transmitter circuit via the respective first and second signal carriers;
• inputting the first and second signals from the respective first and second signal carriers into the receiver circuit;
• decoding the first and second signals for recovering the clock signal by detecting and combining signal transitions of the first and second signal;
• and recovering the data message from the first and/or the second signal;
• characterized in that:
• the data item is a data bit and that the decoding comprises;
• sampling the first signal in synchronization with the recovered clock signal;
• comparing a sampled value bi+1 sampled at instant ti+1 to a sampled value bi sampled at an instant ti immediately preceding instant ti+1;
• and
• determining that the function f(di+1) of data bit di+1 has the first value if bi≠bi+1 and that f(di+1) has the second value if bi=bi+1.

A method of serially communicating between at least one transmitter circuit and at least one receiver circuit interconnected via a communication medium;

• the communication medium providing at least a first and a second parallel signal carrier for transporting a respective first and second signal from the transmitter circuit to the receiver circuit;
• wherein the method comprises:
• in synchronization with a clock signal, serially encoding a combination of the clock signal and data items(s) of a data message as the first and second signal such that at a data item boundary a signal transition occurs in either the first or the second signal;
• wherein the encoding step comprises transferring data bits to the encoded signals by means of an XOR function, outputting the first and second signal from the transmitter circuit via the respective first and second signal carriers;
• inputting the first and second signals from the respective first and second signal carriers into the receiver circuit;
• decoding the first and second signals for recovering the clock signal by detecting and combining signal transitions of the first and second signal;
• and recovering the data message from the first and/or the second signal as derived from the recovered clock signal;
• and the decoding step comprises transforming the encoded signals into the data bits by means of an XOR function, and wherein
• the encoding comprises causing a transition of the first signal at a data item boundary preceding data item d of the data message if a function f(d) of the data item d has a first value and causing a transition of the second signal at the data item boundary if the function f(d) has a different second value.