System and method for characterizing a receiver of a communication signal

A method, comprising:

• providing, by a receiver circuit included in a first integrated circuit (IC), a first signal;
• determining, by an eye-scan controller included in the first IC, an initial position of a unit interval associated with the first signal;
• performing, by the eye-scan controller, a left sweep process, the left sweep process including:
• sweeping toward a left end of the unit interval from the initial position to a left sweep end to generate a first sequence of sampling positions;
• sampling the first signal based on the first sequence of sampling positions to generate a sampled symbol signal;
• generating a first sequence of bit error rates (BERs) corresponding to the first sequence of sampling positions based on the sampled symbol signal;
• and
• determining the left sweep end based on the first sequence of BERs;
• performing, by the eye-scan controller, a right sweep process, the right sweep process including:
• sweeping toward a right end of the unit interval from the initial position to a right sweep end to generate a second sequence of sampling positions;
• sampling the first signal based on the second sequence of sampling positions to generate the sampled symbol signal;
• generating a second sequence of BERs corresponding to the second sequence of sampling positions using the sampled symbol signal;
• and
• determining the second sweep end based on the second sequence of BERs.