Patent ID: 8160527

Claim:
A receiver circuit for processing a received multi-carrier signal, comprising: a common analog signal path for conditioning the received multi-carrier signal and converting the received multi-carrier signal into digital form, the common analog signal path comprising an analog variable-gain circuit and an analog-to-digital converter; first and second carrier-specific, digital variable-gain circuits corresponding to first and second carriers of the received multi-carrier signal, respectively; and a gain control circuit configured to; control the analog variable-gain circuit and the digital variable-gain circuits; and to selectively operate in an all-carrier mode or in one of one or more unequal-priority modes based on a difference between carrier signal levels of the first and second carriers, wherein an all-carrier mode is selected when the difference between the first and second carrier signal levels is less than a first pre-determined threshold; calculate gain adjustments for the analog variable-gain circuit based on an average of the first and second carrier signal levels and a pre-determined optimal input level for the analog-to-digital converter while in said all-carrier mode; calculate gain adjustments for the analog variable-gain circuit from only one of the first and second carrier signal levels while in said unequal-priority mode; and allot the gain adjustments to the analog variable-gain circuit.