January 8, 2004 -- Noise represents the fundamental limit for many signal-processing applications. As such, it is a key constraint for many electronic designs, particularly interface circuits. Industry trends in applications as disparate as test and measurement, medical imaging, and high-speed data communications demand ever-increasing information densities. Meanwhile, advancements in semiconductor processes enable greater data-processing speeds and functional densities but at the cost of operating supply voltage and, consequently, signal amplitude. The result is increasing pressure on system designs to manage the noise performance of analog front ends.

By Joshua Israelsohn, Technical Editor