Nonuniform sampling driver design for optimal ADC utilization

Abstract

Deliberate nonuniform sampling promises increased equivalent sampling rates with reduced overall hardware costs of the DSP system. The equivalent sampling rate is the sampling rate that a uniform sampling device would require in order to achieve the same processing bandwidth. Equivalent bandwidths of realizable systems may well extend into the GHz range while the mean sampling rate stays in the MHz range. Current prototype systems (IECS) have an equivalent bandwidth of 1.6 GHz at a mean sampling rate of 80 MHz, achieving 40 times the bandwidth of a classic DSP system that would operate uniformly at 80 MHz. Throughout the literature on nonuniform sampling, different sampling schemes have been investigated. This paper focuses on nonuniform sampling schemes optimized for fast and efficient hardware implementation. To our knowledge, this is the first proposal of an efficient nonuniform sampling driver (SD) design in the open literature.