A 5-bit 1.8 GS/s ADC-based receiver with two-tap low-overhead embedded DFE in 130-nm CMOS

Along with CMOS technology scaling, ADC-based serial link receivers have drawn growing interest in backplane communications but power dissipation of the ADC and complex digital equalizer in such digital receivers can be a limiting factor in high-speed applications. Implementing analog embedded equalization within the front-end ADC structure can potentially relax the ADC resolution requirement and reduces the complexity of the DSP which results in a more energy-efficient receiver. In this paper, the equivalence between the speculative comparisons of a loop-unrolling DFE and an ADC with non-uniform quantization levels is utilized to propose a novel ADC-based DFE receiver structure. The equivalency partially compensates for the power overhead imposed by loop-unrolling DFE. The 5-bit prototype receiver with two-tap embedded DFE is designed, laid out and simulated in a 130-nm CMOS process with 1.8 Gbps data rate. With embedded DFE disabled, the receiver achieves 4.57-bits ENOB and 1.77 pJ/conv.-step FOM. With 1.8-Gbps signaling across a 48-in FR4 channel, the two-tap DFE enabled receiver opens the completely closed eye and allows for a 0.26 UI timing margin at a BER of 10⁻⁹. The total active area is 0.21 mm² and the ADC consumes 76 mW from a 1.2-V supply.     

Sequence estimation techniques for digital subscriber looptransmission with crosstalk interference

The use of reduced-state sequence estimation techniques in a digital subscriber loop receiver is discussed. These techniques offer a potential performance improvement over conventional equalization techniques such as decision feedback equalization (DFE). Stationary and cyclostationary NEXT noise models are described. The theoretical performance obtainable from a Viterbi algorithm receiver with stationary white Gaussian noise, stationary NEXT, and cyclostationary NEXT noise models is estimated, and the reduced-state decision feedback sequence estimation and M algorithms are reviewed. It is shown that the improvement can be especially significant in the presence of cyclostationary crosstalk because of the freedom that sequence estimation receivers afford in the choice of receiver sampling phase. This advantage is evaluated for Viterbi algorithm receivers. By simulation of two practical reduced-state sequence estimation receivers, it is demonstrated that, in the presence of cyclostationary crosstalk, a substantial increase in maximum loop range (or equivalently, maximum bit rate) may be achievable compared to conventional DFE equalization     

一种用于无线信道的逐幸存处理均衡器

提出了一种适用于无线时变信道的逐幸存处理均衡器。通过训练序列得到信道参数的初始估计值,此后在Viterbi算法进行网格搜索的过程中,使得每一条幸存路径维持各自的信道参数,并在确定幸存分支后利用历史幸存序列对信道参数值进行更新,实现了信道参数的无时延估计。仿真结果表明,在无线时变信道环境下,逐幸存处理均衡器的性能明显优于其他传统均衡器。     

Pseudoerror Monitor for 16 QAM 140 Mbit/s Digital Radio

This paper presents the performance of a pseudoerror monitoring technique for a 16 QAM 140 Mbit/s digital radio in presence of multipath dispersive fading. The so-called pseudoerrors, generated by means of a threshold modification of two, namely, secondary receivers are entered into an extrapolating function to obtain a fast bit error ratio (BER) calculation. A counting time of 10 ms was retained in order to follow fading depth changes up to 100 dB/s and fading notch speeds up to 300 MHz/s approximately. We have considered three structures for the receiver: without equalization, with IF amplitude equalization, and decision feedback equalization (DFE). The results obtained show the estimated and real BER within a margin that includes the two recommended CCIR values: 10^-3and10^-6. In particular, the estimated signature obtained in the case of using IF equalization reveals that this fast BER calculation could be an effective choice to control a frequency diversity switch, even in the presence of a fading activity with rapid variations.     

Monobit digital receivers for ultrawideband communications

Ultrawideband systems employ short low-power pulses. Analog receiver designs can accommodate the required bandwidths, but they come at a cost of reduced flexibility. Digital approaches, on the other hand, provide flexibility in receiver signal processing but are limited by analog-to-digital converter (ADC) resolution and power consumption. In this paper, we consider reduced complexity digital receivers, in which the ADC is limited to a single bit per sample. We study three one-bit ADC schemes: 1) fixed reference; 2) stochastic reference; and 3) sigma-delta modulation (SDM). These are compared for two types of receivers based on: 1) matched filtering; and 2) transmitted reference. Bit-error rate (BER) expressions are developed for these systems and compared to full-resolution implementations with negligible quantization error. The analysis includes the impact of quantization noise, filtering, and oversampling. In particular, for an additive white Gaussian noise channel, we show that the SDM scheme with oversampling can achieve the BER performance of a full-resolution digital receiver.     

Performance of sequence estimation scheme of narrowband digital FMsignals with limiter-discriminator detection

A communication scheme using binary FM with noncoherent limiter-discriminator detection has been well known. Up to now, the improvement of bit error rate at the receiver side has been carried out through the bandwidth optimization of the IF filter, the decision feedback equalization (DFE), or simple two-state maximum likelihood sequence estimator (MLSE). This channel is inherently the intersymbol interference (ISI) channel due to the premodulation baseband filtering as well as the narrowband IF filtering. So the sequence estimation scheme using the Viterbi algorithm can be applied successfully, although the channel is not additive white Gaussian and maximum likelihood in the strict sense. In this paper, through computer simulations, we examine the actual BER improvement of the sequence estimation scheme with multiple-state trellis especially for MSK and GMSK signals. We mainly consider static AWGN and frequency nonselective Rician fading channels. Consequently, by adjusting the IF filter bandwidth, very large estimation gains are obtained compared to the conventional DFE or MLSE detector for AWGN and Rician fading channels. This scheme does not produce large demodulation delay and is implemented only by adding the signal processing part to the final stage of the receiver. This scheme seems to be very useful for any applications including satellite mobile channels     

A 6-GSamples/s multi-level decision feedback equalizer embedded in a 4-bit time-interleaved pipeline A/D converter

A 4-bit 6-GS/s pipeline A/D converter with 10-way time-interleaving is demonstrated in a 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS technology. The A/D converter is designed for a serial-link receiver and features an embedded adjustable single-tap DFE for channel equalization. The ISI subtraction of the DFE is performed at the output of each pipeline stage; hence the effective feedback delay requirement is relaxed by 6/spl times/. Code-overlapping of the 1.5-bit pipeline stage along with digital error correction is used to absorb and remove the remainder of the ISI. The measured A/D converter performance at 6-GSamples/s shows 22.5 dB of low-frequency input SNDR for the calibrated A/D converter with /spl plusmn/0.25 LSB and /spl plusmn/0.4 LSB of INL and DNL, respectively. The input capacitance is 170 fF for each A/D converter. The DFE tap coefficient is adjustable from 0 to 0.25 with 6-bits of programmable weight. With a DFE coefficient of 0.2, the measured DFE performance shows 2.5 dB of amplitude boosting for a 3-GHz input sinusoid. The 1.8/spl times/1.6 mm/sup 2/ chip consumes 780 mW of power from a 1.8-V power supply.     

A suboptimal approach to channel equalization based on the nearestneighbor rule

Applications of clustering and neural network techniques to channel equalization have revealed the classification nature of this problem. This paper illustrates an implementation of a global system for mobile communications (GSM) receiver in which channel equalization and demodulation are realized by means of the nearest neighbor (NN) classifier algorithm. The most important advantage in using such techniques is the significant reduction in terms of the computational complexity compared with the maximum likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) equalizer. The proposed approach involves symbol-by-symbol interpretation and the knowledge of the channel is embedded in the mapping process of the received symbols over the symbols of the training sequence. This means that no explicit channel estimation need be carried out, either with correlative blocks or using neural networks thus speeding up the entire process. The performance of the proposed receiver, evaluated through a channel simulator for mobile radio communications, is compared with the results obtained by means of a 16-state Viterbi algorithm and other suboptimal receivers. It is shown that the presented algorithm increases the bit error rate (BER) compared with the MLSE demodulator, but the performance degradation, despite the simplicity of the receiver, is kept within the limits imposed by the GSM specifications     

Performance analysis of error propagation effects in the DFE for ATSC DTV receivers

The paper analyzes the error propagation phenomenon in the decision feedback equalizer (DFE) for the receivers of Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) digital television (DTV) and presents the performance upper-limits of the DFE by comparing various error propagation cases and the no-error propagation case. As one approach to the performance limit, we consider a blind DFE, adopting a trellis decoder with a trace-back depth of 1 as a decision device. Through simulation, we show how much the DFE performance in ATSC DTV receivers is affected by error propagation. We found that while blind equalization is preferable to decision-directed (DD) equalization at signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values less than 18 dB, DD equalization is superior to blind equalization at SNR values greater than 18 dB. In addition, symbol error rate curves quantitatively show that the performance difference in the DFE caused by error propagation becomes clearer at the trellis decoder following the DFE. The analysis results presented are very informative for developing equalization algorithms for ATSC DTV receivers.     

Broadband multicarrier communication receiver based on analog to digital conversion in the frequency domain

This paper introduces a multicarrier communication receiver for broadband applications based on analog to digital conversion (ADC) of the received signal in the frequency domain. The samples of the spectrum of the received signal are used in the digital receiver to estimate the transmitted symbols through a matched filter operation in the discrete frequency domain. The proposed receiver is aimed at the reception of high information rates in a multicarrier signal with very large bandwidth. Thus, the receiver architecture provides a solution to some of the challenging problems found in the implementation of conventional wideband multicarrier receivers based on time-domain ADC, since It efficiently parallelizes the A/D conversion reducing the sampling speed requirements. We show that the sampling rate requirements are relaxed as the number of frequency samples is increased, which introduces a trade-off between complexity and sampling rate. The new receiver possesses additional advantages, including scalability with increasing frequency samples, the possibility of optimally allocating the available number of bits for the ATD conversion across the frequency domain samples which potentially reduces the distortion introduced by the high-speed ADC, narrowband interference suppression that can be directly carried out in the frequency domain, and inherent robustness to frequency offset which makes it an attractive solution when compared with traditional multicarrier receivers. We also investigate how the proposed receiver responds to common multicarrier communication receiver problems such as phase noise and channel frequency selectivity.     

A decision feedback equalizer with time-reversal structure

This work describes the use of a receiver with a time-reversal structure for low-complexity decision feedback equalization of slowly fading dispersive indoor radio channels. Time-reversal is done by storing each block of received signal samples in a buffer and reversing the sequential order of the signal samples in time prior to equalization. As a result, the equivalent channel impulse response as seen by the equalizer is a time-reverse of the actual channel impulse response. Selective time-reversal operation, therefore, allows a decision feedback equalizer (DFE) with a small number of forward filter taps to perform equally well for both minimum-phase and maximum-phase channel characteristics. The author evaluates the theoretical performance bounds for such a receiver and quantifies the possible performance improvement for discrete multipath channels with Rayleigh fading statistics. Two extreme cases of DFE examples are considered: an infinite-length DFE; and a DFE with a single forward filter tap. Optimum burst and symbol timing recovery is addressed and several practical schemes are suggested. Simulation results are presented. The combined use of equalization and diversity reception is considered     

Autonomous dual-mode (PAM2/4) serial link transceiver with adaptive equalization and data recovery

This paper describes an adaptively equalized, dual-mode (PAM2 one-tap DFE/PAM4) 0.13 /spl mu/m CMOS transceiver chip, and the techniques used to continuously adapt the link. Interestingly, with only minor modification the same hardware needed to implement a PAM4 system can be used to implement a PAM2 loop-unrolled single-tap decision-feedback equalization (DFE) receiver. Adaptive equalization using data-based update filtering allows continuous updates while minimizing the required sampler front-end hardware and significantly reduces the cost of implementation in multi-level signaling schemes. To allow the transmitter to adapt to the channel, the link uses common-mode signaling to create a back-channel communication path over the existing pair of wires. The design uses a three-level return-to- signaling scheme which allows the receiver to simultaneously extract voltage and timing references and minimize the required receiver hardware. The measured results indicate that this back-channel achieves reliable communication without noticeable impact on the forward link for back-channel data rates of up to 16 Mb/s and swings of 20-100 mV.     

MIMO OFDM Receivers for Systems With IQ Imbalances

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a widely recognized modulation scheme for high data rate communications. However, the implementation of OFDM-based systems suffers from in-phase and quadrature-phase (IQ) imbalances in the front-end analog processing. Such imbalances are caused by the analog processing of the received radio frequency (RF) signal, and they cannot be efficiently or entirely eliminated in the analog domain. The resulting IQ distortion limits the achievable operating SNR at the receiver and, consequently, the achievable data rates. The issue of IQ imbalances is even more severe at higher SNR and higher carrier frequencies. In this paper, the effect of IQ imbalances on multi-input multioutput (MIMO) OFDM systems is studied, and a framework for combating such distortions through digital signal processing is developed. An input–output relation governing MIMO OFDM systems is derived. The framework is used to design receiver algorithms with compensation for IQ imbalances. It is shown that the complexity of the system at the receiver grows from dimension$(n_Rtimes n_T)$for ideal IQ branches to$(2n_Rtimes 2n_T)$in the presence of IQ imbalances. However, by exploiting the structure of space-time block codes along with the distortion models, one can obtain efficient receivers that are robust to IQ imbalances. Simulation results show significant improvement in the achievable BER of the proposed MIMO receivers for space-time block-coded OFDM systems in the presence of IQ imbalances.     

Adaptive Equalization Techniques for HF Channels

Data transmission at rates of 1.2 kbits/s or higher through voiceband ionospheric channels is subject to impairment from severe linear distortion, fast channel time variations, and severe fading. In this paper, we have focused on the performance of DFE (decision feedback equalization) receivers for communication over 3 kHz bandwidth HF channels. We describe the results of simulations for a wide range of fading rates on simulated and real recorded HF channels, using fractionally spaced DFE receivers. Both LMS (least mean square) and FRLS (fast recursive least squares) adaptation algorithms with periodic restart were evaluated, and both ideal-reference and decision-directed operation was observed. The results indicate that FRLS adaptation yields superior performance to LMS in rapid fading conditions, but that this performance advantage diminishes at low signal-to-noise ratios. Also, fade rates greater than about 1 Hz produced relatively high error rates, irrespective of which adaptation method was employed. Finally, a novel modification of the simple LMS algorithm which improves its tracking ability was evaluated. This involved preceding the LMS DFE receiver with an adaptive lattice whitening filter.     

Link reliability for IS-54/136 handsets with different receiverstructures

We estimate link reliabilities for IS-54/136 digital cellular handsets operating with or without an equalizer in urban, suburban, rural, and mountainous environments. We define the reliability of a user's receiver as the probability that the bit error rate (BER) is less than some specified value. The probability is taken over all mobile positions in a cell area and the BER is averaged over multipath fading. Using a range of tools for modeling and simulation of the digital cellular link (transmitter, channel, and receiver), we present an extensive set of results showing the influence of: (1) receiver structures (differential detection with no equalizer, differential detection with selection diversity, or coherent detection with a medium-complexity equalizer); (2) joint distribution of the channel's RMS delay spread and average signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) (this distribution is based on an environment-specific model reported previously); and (3) vehicle speed (0-200 km/h). In all simulations, we assumed a two-path Rayleigh fading channel characterized by: (1) the delay between paths and (2) the ratio of power received from the first path to that from the second path (the RMS delay spread relates to these two parameters). For typical cell sizes, we find that imposing an equalization requirement in IS-54/136 handsets is overly stringent in all environments, except mountainous areas. For these environments, achieving high reliability requires either equalization or other measures, such as smaller cells, directional base-station antennas, or dual-diversity handsets     

Advanced television systems for terrestrial broadcasting: Someproblems and some proposed solutions

The first part of this paper discusses the requirements that must be met by a new television broadcasting system to maximize its acceptability to the various stakeholders, including broadcasters, equipment manufacturers, program producers, regulatory authorities, and viewers. The most important performance factors are efficient use of over-the-air spectrum, coverage versus quality, cost, interoperability, and the existence of a practical transition scenario. It is concluded that all receivers need not have the same peformance, and that low-cost receivers must be available for noncritical locations in the home. If this variation in price and performance is made possible by appropriate system design, then interoperability is facilitated and nondisruptive improvement over time is made possible, as desired by the Federal Communications Commission. In the second part of the paper, techniques that may permit meeting these requirements are discussed. These include joint multiresolution source and channel coding, multicarrier modulation, and hybrid analog/digital coding and transmission. The analog transform coefficients are subjected to spread-spectrum processing, and coded orthogonal frequency-division multiplex (COFDM) is applied to the complex hybrid symbols to be transmitted through the channel. Various methods of equalization and of improving noise, interference, and multipath rejection are compared. Finally, an example is given of a system that meets the various requirements by making use of a number of the techniques discussed. The system provides extended coverage, albeit at lower quality than currently proposed all-digital systems, and equal or higher quality than such systems in much of their service area. It also features self-optimization at each receiver depending on signal quality and receiver characteristics, and facilitates the design of receivers of lower cost and performance for less-critical applications     

Channel equalization via channel identification: algorithms andsimulation results for rapidly fading HF channels

The problem of channel equalization via channel identification (CEQCID) that has previously been considered by a handful of researchers is explored further. An efficient algorithm for mapping the channel parameters to the equalizers coefficients is proposed. The proposed scheme is compared with a lattice least squares (LS) based receivers. For the particular application of the high frequency (HF) radio channels, we find that the CEQCID has lower computational complexity. In terms of the tracking performance, also, the CEQCID has been found to be superior to the LS based receivers. We emphasize on the implementation of a fractionally tap-spaced decision feedback equalizer (DFE) and compare that with the T-spaced DFE. We show that the former is a better choice for the multipath HF channels     

Iterative Joint Tone-Interference Cancellation and Decoding for MIMO-OFDM

In this paper, multi-input–multi-output orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) is considered in the presence of multipath fading and multitone interference (MTI). The MIMO-OFDM system makes joint use of channel coding and orthogonal space–frequency block coding (OSFBC) on the transmit side and iterative processing on the receiver side for robustness and improved performance against the fading and MTI effects of the channel. The new iterative receiver is implemented by either an optimal a posteriori probability (APP) space–frequency detector or a soft-information-aided minimum-mean-squared-error (MMSE) combiner at its front end and a soft-input–soft-output channel decoder at its back end. An approximate error performance analysis is provided for the OSFBC-OFDM system under maximum-likelihood decoding to illustrate the interference mitigation efficiency of the system. Then, the two iterative receivers are compared in terms of their computational complexities and bit error rate (BER) performances. As depicted in the BER graphs, both iterative receivers provide an improvement in performance after only a few detection/decoding iterations. It is also shown that despite its suboptimality, the MMSE receiver has the potential to achieve a BER performance close to that of the APP detector at a significantly lower cost.      

A 5-mW 6-Gb/s Quarter-Rate Sampling Receiver With a 2-Tap DFE Using Soft Decisions

A quarter-rate sampling receiver with a 2-tap decision feedback equalizer (DFE) is implemented in 90-nm CMOS technology for low-power I/O links. An analog sampling and soft-decision technique is introduced to relax the timing critical feedback path of the DFE. The shortened critical path enables better power performance. Error rates are below the measurement capability of 10^-12 with 2³¹-1 PRBS at 6 Gb/s, with an 80-mV differential launch amplitude through a channel with 6.2-dB attenuation at 3 GHz. The receiver draws 4.08 mA from a 1.0-V supply     

大气光通信中应用最优选择分集

针对大气光通信中湍流对接收端误码率的影响,提出利用空间分集技术,通过对多发射器、多接收器最优选择来改善信噪比,降低误码率。仿真结果表明,当湍流较强时,多发射多接收比单发射单接收对系统的性能有更明显的改善。同时表明,在对数正态分布的光信道上,最优选择的效果与在瑞利衰落的无线信道上的效果基本相同。