Methods and systems are described for receiving symbols of a codeword via wires of a multi-wire bus, the codeword representing an aggregate sum of a plurality of sub-channel constituent codewords, each sub-channel constituent codeword representing a weight applied to an associated sub-channel vector of a plurality of sub-channel vectors of an orthogonal matrix, generating a plurality of comparator outputs using a plurality of common-mode resistant multi-input comparators (MICs), each common-mode resistant MIC having a set of input coefficients representing a corresponding sub-channel vector of the plurality of sub-channel vectors, each sub-channel vector (i) mutually orthogonal and (ii) orthogonal to a common-mode sub-channel vector, outputting a set of forward-channel output bits formed based on the plurality of comparator outputs, obtaining a sequence of reverse-channel bits, and transmitting the sequence of reverse-channel bits by sequentially transmitting common-mode codewords over the wires of the multi-wire bus.