On finite word length effects for the FIR MMSE-DFE

An analytical upper bound on the degradation in the decision-point signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the finite-impulse-response (FIR) minimum mean-square error decision-feedback equalizer (MMSE-DFE) due to finite-precision implementation of its optimum filter coefficients is derived. Simulation results demonstrate the tightness of the analytical bound for scenarios of most practical interest.