Nex generation digital front-end for multi-standard concurrent reception

This article presents an architecture of a Digital Front-End Receiver (DFE-Rx) for the next-generation mobile terminals. A main focus is placed in flexibility, scalability and concurrency. The architecture is capable of detecting, synchronizing and reporting carrier-frequency offset, of multiple concurrent radio standards. The proposed receiver is fabricated in a 65 nm CMOS low power high-VT cell technology in a die size of 5mm². The synchronization engine has been measured at 1.2V and reports an average power consumption of 1.9mW during IEEE 802.11 (WLAN) reception and 1.6mW during configuration, while running at 10 MHz.