US Patent 7835464 Digital signal receiver with Q-monitor

A digital signal receiver for a high-bitrate digital signal has a serial signal input (20, 20′) and a number of N parallel digital signal outputs (26) with N>1. The receiver contains at least N+1 digital sampling channels (31-35), a Q-monitor (37, 38) for comparing the output signal of at least two of the sampling channels (31-35), and a switch fabric (36) for controllably connecting N of the sampling channels (31-35) to the outputs (26) and at least two of the sampling channels (31-35) to the Q-monitor (37, 38). This allows to use N of the sampling channels to provide the N output signals while at the same time, the at least one remaining sampling channel can be used by the Q-monitor to scan an eye diagram.