A nomogram for determining FFT system dynamic range

This paper presents a nomogram which represents a powerful design and specification tool for fixed-point Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) systems. Utilization of the nomogram allows one to maximize the dynamic range of an FFT system consistent with hardware/software constraints. The nomogram yields system dynamic range as a function of the following parameters: the number of bits in the A/D converter used for sampling, the amount of jitter in the sampling period, the number of bits in the stored cosine table, the number of bits in the arithmetic unit, and the type of array scaling used. Experimental results are presented in order to demonstrate the accuracy of the nomogram.