Lane adaptation in high-speed serial links

Adaptive equalizer circuitry including both a continuous time equalizer (CTE) and a discrete time equalizer (DTE) and a method of jointly adapting the CTE and DTE in lane adaptation. Jointly adaptation of the CTE and DTE is performed by adapting the DTE at each of a plurality of filter characteristic settings of the CTE and determining a figure of merit for signals filtered by the CTE and DTE at that condition. Adaptation of the DTE may be performed by dynamically adjusting a convergence coefficient based on a history of error gradients. After a figure of merit is determined for each of the plurality of CTE filter characteristics, a CTE filter characteristic setting is then selected based on those figure of merit values, for example at a CTE setting near a midpoint of an acceptable region of figure of merit values.