On Dynamic Range of Digital Receivers

Dynamic range of a digital receiver is determined by its analog and mixed signal portion (AMP). Among parameters that characterize the receiver dynamic range, single-tone dynamic range and two-tone dynamic range are usually most important. The ultimate value of the dynamic range upper bound is limited by acceptable power consumption of the receiver AMP. Since expanding the dynamic range usually significantly increases the receiver power consumption, ability to calculate the minimum required dynamic range is very important. An approach to a closed-form solution of the problem is discussed in this paper. Another problem discussed in the paper is achieving the maximum potential dynamic range of a digital receiver. This requires combined use of both well-known and novel methods of dynamic range improvement. The methods include proper selection of the receiver sampling frequency, filtering and utilization of the signal energy during sampling, reduction of the quantization step and increase in the effective number of bits in the receiver A/D, rejection of the strongest interfering signal as close as possible to the antenna, etc.