Si/SiGe ICs for ultra-broadband communications: The analog signal processing perspective

Digital signal processing is the de facto standard in wireless communications. Facilitated by the unprecedented increase in computing power, it offers excellent performance in tasks such as channel equalization, demodulation, or error correction. With increasing bitrates in wireless links, towards 10 Gb/s and above, this development needs to be re-assessed as analog techniques may offer the required performance at much reduced power and cost. This paper will focus on the receiver part of the channel, discussing how analog signal processing techniques can be successfully applied to demodulation and channel equalization.