“In the telecommunication era, analog design is not just a matter of isolated
self-satisfying circuit tweaking, it is above all a system planning.”
Digital radio and high-speed internet access have created a great demand on high-performance data converters. The conventional view of data converters as numerical conversion blocks does not suffice for this kind of communication applications. From a communication system’s perspective, the bit error rate (BER) requirement determines the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) requirement for a given modulation and duplexing scheme. Therefore, when we design data converters for a communication system, frequency-domain measures such as the SNR are of great importance. In theory, any known distortion components in a transmit channel of a communication system can be corrected by measuring it through the use of a pilot signal or during the initialization phase. But in practice, it is difficult to predict the distortions due to the time-varying interference of adjacent channels in most communication systems. Therefore, the distortion and inter-modulation of data converters are of great importance as well. The use of discrete multi-tone (DMT) modulation for digital subscriber line (DSL) and the use of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) for wideband radio further complicate the data converter design in that even the single-tone frequency-domain measures do not suffice.
Most universities teach analog courses as circuit design courses with little interaction with communication or signal processing systems. Most analog designers can only design circuits specified by system engineers without much understanding of the system, and most system engineers have not much knowledge about analog imperfections.This combination usually results in non-optimal system solutions. If analog designers with the system knowledge participate in the system specification and system partitioning, we can really design the optimal system with judicious trade-offs between analog and digital, software and hardware. By realizing the industrial and educational need of analog designers with system knowledge, the Microelectronics Research Center of Ericsson started analog activities with close cooperations with Linköping University in 1995. One of the results is this book.
CMOS data converters for communications addresses analog design for communication
systems. It distinguishes itself from other data converter books by emphasizing
system-related aspects of data converter designs and frequency-domain performance
of data converters. However, this is not a book written by system designers rather than by circuit designers. It therefore also covers circuit designs and implementations of CMOS data converters, based on measured chips.
CMOS data converters for communications bridges the gap between the communication
system requirements and the mixed signal design. It derives data converter requirements from the communication system specifications such as line codes,
modulation schemes, and duplexing methods, etc. It also gives examples of relating
asymmetrical DSL (ADSL) and wideband ratio systems to the data converter requirements.
CMOS data converters for communications can be used as a reference book by analog
circuit designers to understand the data converter requirements for communications.It can also be used by communication system designers to understand the difficulties of certain performance requirements on data converters. This book reflects the authors many year philosophy in both industrial practice and academic education. In the telecommunication era, analog design is not just a matter of isolated self-satisfying circuit tweaking, it is above all a system planning. To prepare analog students for the new challenge, this book can be an excellent resort.