Method and apparatus for recovering time-domain hybrid modulated QAM signals

1. A method for recovering a quadrature amplitude modulated (QAM) signal, the method comprising:

receiving a QAM signal at a demultiplexers, wherein the QAM signal comprises a plurality of modulation schemes;

splitting the QAM signal into k branches, where k is the number of QAM modulation schemes of the signal;

passing the branch having the lowest order QAM modulation scheme to a first equalizer for recovering and tracking polarization and compensating polarization mode dispersion (PMD);

updating a tap updating algorithm with a recovery value determined by the first equalizer; and

recovering and tracking polarization and compensating PMD for all other branches based on the recovery value.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the equalizers operate in parallel.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein k=2 and the QAM signal comprises QPSK and 8QAM modulation.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein k=3 and the QAM signal comprises QPSK, 8QAM, and 16QAM modulation.

5. The method of claim 1 , the QAM signal is symbol interleaved.

6. The method of claim 1 , the QAM signal is block interleaved.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

passing each of the compensated branches to phase correction units;

recovering and tracking the carrier phase of the lowest order QAM signal from a first phase correction unit to derive an error signal; and

recovering and tracking the carrier phase of the remaining QAM signal branches based on the error signal.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the equalizers and phase correction units both operate in parallel.

9. The method of claim 7 , wherein k=2 and the QAM signal comprises QPSK and 8QAM modulation.

10. The method of claim 7 , wherein k=3 and the QAM signal comprises QPSK, 8QAM, and 16QAM modulation.

11. The method of claim 7 , the QAM signal is symbol interleaved.

12. The method of claim 7 , the QAM signal is block interleaved.

13. An apparatus comprising:

a plurality of equalizers configured to receiving a portion of a QAM signal, wherein the plurality of equalizers comprise a first equalizer for processing a portion of the signal having the lowest order QAM modulation scheme to recover and track polarization and compensate PMD;

a tap updating unit for updating a recovery value determined by the first equalizer and used by the other equalizers for recovering and tracking polarization and compensating PMD;

a plurality of phase correction units comprising a first phase correction unit for recovering and tracking the carrier phase of the lowest order QAM signal to derive an error signal; and

a carrier phase recovery circuit (CR) for updating the error signal determined by the first phase correction unit and used by the other phase correction units for recovering and tracking carrier phase.

14. The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the equalizers operate in parallel.

15. The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the QAM signal comprises QPSK and 8QAM modulation.

16. The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the QAM signal comprises QPSK, 8QAM, and 16QAM modulation.

17. The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the QAM signal is symbol interleaved.

18. The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the QAM signal is block interleaved.

19. The apparatus of claim 13 , wherein the QAM signal is a time-domain hybrid modulated QAM signal.

20. The method of claim 7 , wherein the QAM signal is a time-domain hybrid modulated QAM signal.