When expanding digital signal processing of mobile communications terminals
toward the antenna while making the terminal more wideband in order to be
able to cope with different mobile communications standards in a software-r
adio-based terminal, the designer is faced with strong requirements such as
bandwidth and dynamic range. Many publications claim that only reconfigura
ble hardware such as FPGAs can simultaneously cope with such diversity and
requirements. Starting with considerations of the receiver architecture, we
describe key functionalities of the digital front-end and highlight how si
gnal characteristics of mobile communications signals and commonalities amo
ng different signal processing operations can be exploited to great advanta
ge, eventually enabling implementations on an ASIC that, although not recon
figurable, would empower the software radio concept.