Modes of operations in QAM modems

1. An internal modem controller comprising:

a QAM modem;

and

a controller embedded in said QAM modem; said controller is configured to control said QAM modem according to a control algorithm; wherein a state machine having 10 states is embedded in said QAM modem; said control algorithm comprising the following steps:

(A1) using a host interface to select a pair of states “ 1 B” and “ 5 B”; wherein said state “ 1 B” is used to perform coarse frequency estimation of an incoming QAM signal; and wherein said state “ 5 B” is used to perform frequency sweep operation that causes a signal frequency of said incoming QAM signal to fall within an acquisition bandwidth of a carrier recovery loop;

(B2) causing said state machine to progress from said initial state “ 1 B” to a final state “ 9 ” via said state “ 5 B” in order to automatically acquire an incoming QAM signal; wherein said final state “ 9 ” comprises a tracking state used to perform a decision directed equalization (DDE) of said incoming QAM signal; and wherein said state machine utilizes a maximum number of symbols of said incoming QAM signal to complete an acquisition of said QAM signal;

(C) Performing a Blind Equalization of said QAM signal without carrier lock to minimize a dispersion error of said received QAM signal constellation as compared with an error-free QAM signal constellation by adjusting a set of coefficients of said equalizer;

(D) Performing a carrier recovery of said QAM signal to eliminate a residual carrier frequency error and to eliminate a phase error from said acquired QAM signal;

and

(E) Performing a decision directed equalization (DDE) of said QAM signal by updating a set of coefficients of said equalizer by using a decision based algorithm.