Equalizer and detector arrangement employing joint entropy-based calibration

Abstract

An equalizer configured to receive a data signal from a channel. The detector is coupled to the equalizer, and a calibration unit is coupled with the equalizer and the detector. The calibration unit is configured to jointly calibrate the equalizer and the detector using a metric subject to an entropy-preserving equalizer constraint.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . An apparatus, comprising:
 an equalizer configured to receive a data signal from a channel;   a detector coupled to the equalizer; and   a calibration unit coupled with the equalizer and the detector, the calibration unit configured to jointly calibrate the equalizer and the detector using a metric subject to an entropy-preserving equalizer constraint.   
     
     
         2 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the calibration unit is configured to produce a decomposition that satisfies the entropy-preserving equalizer constraint. 
     
     
         3 . The apparatus of  claim 2 , wherein the calibration unit is configured to produce the decomposition using a causal factor, an anticausal factor, and a delay factor. 
     
     
         4 . The apparatus of  claim 2 , wherein the calibration unit is configured to produce the decomposition using a monic and minimum-phase factor, a monic and maximum-phase factor, and a delay factor. 
     
     
         5 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the metric comprises an entropy-based metric. 
     
     
         6 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the metric is representative of a statistical distance measure between a modeled probability distribution functions (PDF) and an actual channel PDF. 
     
     
         7 . The apparatus of  claim 6 , wherein the calibration unit is configured to determine a PDF from a class of modeled PDFs using the statistical distance measure. 
     
     
         8 . The apparatus of  claim 7 , wherein the statistical distance measure comprises a Kullback-Leibler distance or relative entropy. 
     
     
         9 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the detector comprises a soft output Viterbi algorithm (SOVA) module configured to implement a Viterbi algorithm and a trellis construct comprising states and transitions among the states. 
     
     
         10 . The apparatus of  claim 9 , wherein the detector comprises a data-dependent noise predictive (DDNP) module coupled with the SOVA module. 
     
     
         11 . The apparatus of  claim 10 , wherein the DDNP module comprises a whitening filter and a storage device configured to store mean shifts for each transition in the trellis construct. 
     
     
         12 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the equalizer is configured to receive the data signal from a read channel of a data storage device. 
     
     
         13 . The apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the equalizer is configured to perform equalization without using a partial response target. 
     
     
         14 . A method, comprising:
 receiving a data signal from a channel by an equalizer;   equalizing the data signal using the equalizer;   detecting a user information component of the data signal using a detector; and   calibrating the equalizer and the detector jointly using an entropy-based metric subject to an entropy-preserving equalizer constraint.   
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein calibrating comprises producing a decomposition that satisfies the entropy-preserving equalizer constraint. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 15 , wherein the decomposition is produced using a causal factor, an anticausal factor, and a delay factor. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the entropy-based metric is representative of a statistical distance measure between a modeled PDF and an actual channel PDF, the statistical distance measure comprising a Kullback-Leibler distance or relative entropy. 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein calibrating the equalizer and the detector jointly comprises providing updates to the equalizer and the detector adaptively and substantially in real-time. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the data signal is acquired from a magnetic recording medium. 
     
     
         20 . An apparatus, comprising:
 an equalizer configured to receive a data signal having inter-symbol interference from a channel; and   a detector coupled to the equalizer, the detector and equalizer configured to operate cooperatively to decode a user information component from the data signal without using a partial response target.