Content or information processing is for the purpose of decomposing or recovering the imbedded information containing data, control, and timing. The SDR architecture consists of functions connected through open interfaces, and procedures for adding software specific tasks to each of the functional areas. The software necessary to operate is referred to as a software application. The following figure shows the SDRF open architecture of seven independent subsystems interconnected by open interfaces. In this view the generalized SDRF functional architecture has been particularized by equating a subsystem definition to each functional area.
Interfaces exist for linking software application specific modules into each subsystem.
Each subsystem contains hardware, firmware, an operating system, and software modules that may be common to more than one application. The application layer is modular, flexible, and software specific. The common software API layer, inferred in the following figure, is standardized with common functions having open and published interfaces. The following figure presents the SDRF functional interface diagram and demonstrates how the SDRF Architecture extends to the definition of functional interfaces. A representative information flow format is provided at the top of the diagram.