Viterbi detector including PRML and EPRML

The authors develop an integrated-Viterbi detector which can handle partial-response maximum-likelihood (PRML) and extended PRML (EPRML). Class 4 partial response (PR4) and extended PR4 (EPR4) equalization can be accepted according to the recording density. The EPRML performance is superior to that of PRML for a normalized recording density above 1.8, but inferior at lower densities. Experimental results agree with theoretical values and prove that the performance of this Viterbi detector is superior, by 8 dB, to that of conventional peak detectors when the normalized recording density is 2.7. >