Analog front end design for gigabit power line communication

An important consequence of the strong demand for efficient power line communication (PLC) systems is the constant increase of the required bandwidth. This bandwidth extension has a direct impact on the Analog Front End (AFE) design. In this paper, we recall the current evolution of the PLC specifications together with its impact on the AFEs. Starting from the HomePlug AV (HPAV) specification, and its AFE operating at 75 MHz, to provide a bandwidth up to 28 MHz, we also examine a bandwidth extension going up to around 87 MHz and obtained by a 200 MHz frequency sampling. Two possible schemes are analyzed using either a two-band or one-band AFE at each transmission side. We show that, if using appropriate weighting filters, with the one single-band AFE system we get an efficient and relatively low cost system.