Stochastic Analysis of Non-Adaptive Decision Feedback Equalizers*

The performance of decision feedback equalizers (DFEs) working on a communication channel with correct taps is studied. In the case of noiseless channels we show that the space of channel parameters can accordingly be partitioned into a finite number of sets. The error recovery performance of a DFE is the same for all DFEs within one such set, and is determinable. We also discuss some tight bounds far recovery time, which are particularly important when the number of equalizer taps is not small. We argue that near minimum phase character for the channel does not necessarily guarantee short recovery time. For noisy channels we indicate that certain error probability upper bounds derived in the literature are tight.