Abstract: A communication system disclosed herein includes a channel quality estimation module that determines the channel quality metric utilizing the preamble portion of the packet only. Data, in such a communication system, is transmitted in the form of a packet over a data channel during a packet transmission, wherein each data channel includes several subchannels. The system includes a receiver having at least a baseband processor. The baseband processor couples to receive each baseband sample signal. Specifically, the baseband processor calculates the gain estimation of the each subchannel and generates a channel quality metric for each subchannel that is derived by deinterleaving the sequence of gain estimation magnitudes, convolving the deinterleaved sequence of gain estimation magnitudes with a short window index, and detecting the number of times the convolution falls beneath a predetermined threshold.

Abstract: In one aspect, the present invention provides a system and method for selecting precursor equalizer coefficients and a serializer deserializer (SERDES) incorporating the system or the method. In one embodiment, the system includes: (1) a cost definer configured to generate an eye height cost function based on continuous-time channel and crosstalk symbol responses pertaining to a particular serial link and (2) a cost evaluator associated with the cost definer and configured to evaluate the eye height cost function based on a particular criterion thereby to produce coefficients for a precursor equalizer to be applied with respect to the particular serial link.

Abstract: An M-dimension M-PAM trellis code encoder, a method of encoding user bits and a decoder. In one embodiment, the encoder includes: (1) a convolutional encoder portion configured to encode at least two user bits into at least three coded bits and (2) a sublattice selector coupled to the convolutional encoder portion and configured to employ the at least three coded bits to select a particular sublattice of code alphabet elements and further to employ at least two additional user bits to select a particular code alphabet element in the sublattice.

Abstract: A communication system includes a receiver having a variable gain module and a baseband processor. The baseband processor measures the power of the signal received and derives a variable gain control setting that is inversely proportional to the power of that signal and sends the variable gain control setting to the variable gain module. The baseband processor generates a channel quality metric that is equivalent to the normalized geometric mean of the squared magnitudes of the gain estimation, divided by the total noise-plus-interference power.

Abstract: A communication system disclosed herein includes a channel quality estimation module that determines the channel quality metric utilizing the preamble portion of the packet only. Data, in such a communication system, is transmitted in the form of a packet over a data channel during a packet transmission, wherein each data channel includes several sub-channels. The system includes a receiver having at least a baseband processor, a deinterleaver, and a channel decoder. The baseband processor couples to receive each baseband sample signal. Specifically, the baseband processor calculates the gain estimation of the each sub-channel and generates a channel quality metric for each sub-channel that is derived by deinterleaving the sequence of gain estimation magnitudes, convolving the deinterleaved sequence of gain estimation magnitudes with a short window index, and detecting the number of times the convolution falls beneath a predetermined threshold.

Abstract: A communication system disclosed herein includes a channel quality estimation module that determines the channel quality metric utilizing the preamble portion of the packet only. Data, in such a communication system, is transmitted in the form of a packet over a data channel during a packet transmission, wherein each data channel includes several sub-channels. The system includes a receiver having a variable gain module and a baseband processor. The variable gain module applies variable gain to the received packets to ensure that the baseband processor receives sample signals of constant energy. The baseband processor, having several functions, couples to receive each baseband sample signal. Specifically, the baseband processor measures the power of the signal received and derives a variable gain control setting that is inversely proportional to the power of that signal.

Abstract: New core geometries to increase the sensing range of proximity transducers in general, and eddy current killed oscillator mode sensors, in particular. A theoretical analysis yields electromagnetic parameters that facilitate prediction of the sensing capability of any ferrite core geometry. The results of this analysis is applied to a multitude of Finite Element Analysis models to study changes in maximum sensing distance due to ferrite core geometry modifications. This yielded preferred embodiments for shielded and unshielded sensors.