A Direct RF-to-Information Converter for reception and wideband interferer detection employing pseudo-random LO modulation

The Direct RF-to-Information Converter (DRF2IC) unifies high sensitivity signal reception, narrowband spectrum sensing and energy-efficient wideband interferer detection into a fast-reconfigurable and easily scalable architecture. In reception mode, the DRF2IC RF front-end (RFFE) consumes 46.5mW and delivers 40MHz RF bandwidth, 41.5dB conversion gain, 3.6dB NF and -2dBm B1dB. 72dB out-of-channel blocker rejection is achieved in narrowband sensing mode. In compressed sensing wideband interferer detection mode, 66dB operational dynamic range, 40dB instantaneous dynamic range, 1.43GHz instantaneous bandwidth (IBW) is demonstrated and 6 interferers scattered over 1.26GHz are detected in 1.2uS consuming 58.5mW.