US Patent 7102545 Simultaneous bidirectional input/output circuit

Disclosed is a data detector for detecting data placed on a bi-directional data channel having two nodes. The data on the data channel is a combination of data placed on the data channel at both nodes. The data detector at the first node compares data received from the data channel to multiple reference voltages. Which reference voltages are used for comparison is determined by the state of data placed on the data channel at the first node. By comparing the data from the data channel to more than one reference voltage data can be detected with a swing margin of about 50%, such that it is less affected by noise, power or other glitches than are conventional circuits. Methods of detecting data are also disclosed.