Wireless Receiver Architectures Towards 5G: Where Are We?

With 5G posing different requirements to the mobile (handset) receiver than earlier generations, the receiver architecture needs to be carefully reconsidered. However, an up-to-date and complete overview is not yet available in literature. In this paper such a review of the currently available receiver architectures is provided, as well as an overview of current trends. For the first time, a framework is introduced that allows a systematic classification of architectures. An identification of unexplored possibilities and system-level trade-offs follows. A more flexible, low-power and high-performance receiver architecture than currently applied is needed for 5G, for which this framework becomes a useful tool.