Digitally enhanced analog circuits: System aspects

An overview of digital enhancement techniques for analog circuits is presented. Recent research suggests that the high density and low energy of digital circuits can be leveraged to enable a new generation of interface electronics that is based on minimal precision, low complexity analog blocks. Today, examples of enhancement schemes can be found in diverse applications and include nonlinearity compensation of ADCs, predistortion of power amplifiers and mismatch calibration in radio receivers. Since it is often difficult to identify commonalities among these different, but conceptually related schemes, this tutorial paper aims to provide a unified and system-oriented perspective of the field.