Abstract: The invention provides a method and an apparatus for determining a skew of each data bit of an encoded data word received by a receiver via an interface from a transmitter comprising the steps of performing an error check and correction of the received and sampled encoded data word to calculate an error corrected encoded data word corresponding to the encoded data word transmitted by the transmitter, and correlating a sequence of error corrected encoded data words with the sampled encoded data words to determine a skew of each data bit of said received encoded data words.

Abstract: The invention provides a memory circuit comprising a plurality of storage cells for storing data and redundant spare storage cells for replacing defective storage cells, and a memory access logic for accessing said storage cells connected to a replacement setting register which is writeable during operation of said memory circuit to store replacement settings.