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FROM EDN EUROPE: AM/FM radio front end directly feeds DSP

With the TDA7580 digital-IF sampling processor, STMicroelectronics extends to AM/FM receivers the concept of digitising a radio signal as early as possible in the receiver. You use the part along with the TDA7515 analogue front end, which the company manufactures in a 0.7-micron BiCMOS process; it manufactures the processor in 0.18-micron CMOS. The processor also includes hardware support for the Radio Data System standard. By directly digitising the signal at the 10.7-MHz IF, the device lets you achieve a more flexible design, in which digital-signal processing can provide more functions and allows you to produce a design that can progress to future in-band, on-channel digital-radio systems.

The DSP algorithms support complex equalisation techniques to reduce multipath-reception effects in weak signal conditions and allow adaptive algorithms to alter the receiver's characteristics as reception conditions change. You can also consider a receiver that is upgradable by loading new code into firmware. Other scenarios that ST sketches out include a digital receiver that would automatically revert to FM reception in poor reception conditions and a digitally controlled tuning configuration that accommodates any frequency band.

STMicroelectronics,
+44 1628 890800, www.st.com.