Sign-Bit based architecture for OFDM acquisition for multiple-standards

This paper presents a hardware mapping of an auto-correlator for Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing stage for three radio standards: LTE, DVB-H, and IEEE 802.11n. Hardware cost is minimized by using only the sign bit in the autocorrelation function. The frequency offset estimation procedure is dramatically simplified by reducing the phase of the envelope to pi/2 resolution, which in turn reduces the need of specialized components. The architecture is synthesized towards a 65 nm low-leakage high threshold standard cell CMOS library. The 1-bit architecture reports an area reduction of 90% for memories, 56% for the logic and a power dissipation reduction of 35%, when compared to an identical 8-bit implementation. The approximate area occupied by the architecture is 0.03mm^2. Power simulations for IEEE 802.11n packet reports a power dissipation of 42uW.