Smart Front-Ends, from Vision to Design

Arthur H.M. van ROERMUND  Peter BALTUS  Andre van BEZOOIJEN  Johannes A. (Hans) HEGT  Emanuele LOPELLI  Reza MAHMOUDI  Georgi I. RADULOV  Maja VIDOJKOVIC 

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Electronics  Vol.E92-C  No.6  pp.747-756
Publication Date: 2009/06/01
Online ISSN: 1745-1353
Print ISSN: 0916-8516
Type of Manuscript: Special Section PAPER (Special Section on Analog Circuits and Related SoC Integration Technologies)
Category: INVITED
Keyword: 
front-end,  programmable,  smart,  Shannon,  mixed-signal,  data converters, 

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Summary: 
An integral multi-disciplinary chain optimization based on a high-level cascaded Shannon-based channel modeling is proposed. It is argued that the analog part of the front-end (FE) will become a bottleneck in the overall chain. This requires a FE-centric design approach, aiming for maximizing the effective data capacity, and for an optimal exploitation of this capacity for given power dissipation. At high level, this asks for a new view on the so-called client-server relations in the chain. To substantiate this vision, some examples of research projects in our group are addressed. These include FE-driven transmission schemes, duty-cycled operation with wake-up radio, programmable FEs, smart antenna-FE combinations, smart and flexible converters, and smart pre and post correction.