System and method for improved spur reduction in direct rf receiver architectures

Abstract

Improved spur reduction architectures that improve linearity in direct radio frequency (RF) receiver architectures. Non-uniform sampling in the form of sampling clock phase (or frequency) modulation is used to induce phase (or frequency) modulation on signals that are being received from a given Nyquist zone. At the output of the ADC (analog-to-digital converter), the signals are de-modulated to remove the induced modulation based on the Nyquist zone that is being received. The de-modulation process results in non-desired spurious artifacts (interfering leakage signals and ADC spurs) being spread in the frequency domain. Strong spurious artifacts may be removed after measuring the induced modulation and de-modulating. For the case of weak spurious artifacts, the de-modulation for the desired Nyquist zone spread these signals in the frequency domain. Induced modulation on signals may also provide a dithering effect on the ADC.