Patent ID: 8903347

Claim:
A method for dynamically selecting high-side or low-side injection of local oscillator mixing signals to help reject images within a receiver, comprising: (a) providing a mixer configured to utilize a mixing signal to mix an input signal to a desired frequency; (b) receiving an RF signal spectrum including a plurality of channels; (c) identifying a channel within the RF signal spectrum to be tuned; (d) selecting high-side injection or low-side injection for the mixing signal; (e) generating a high-side local oscillation (LO) signal if high-side injection is selected, and generating a low-side local oscillation (LO) signal if low-side injection is selected; (f) and mixing the RF signal spectrum with the local oscillation signal that was selected and generated so as to mix the channel to be tuned down to the desired frequency; (g) low-IF conversion circuitry coupled to receive the low-IF signals from the mixer and configured to output digital signals, the low-IF conversion circuitry including first and second analog-to-digital converters coupled to the real and imaginary low-IF signals and configured to output real and imaginary digital signals; and, (h) a digital-signal-processor (DSP) coupled to receive the digital signal from the low-IF conversion circuitry and configured to demodulate the signal within the selected radio channel, to digitally tune the selected radio channel, and to output a digital signal, the DSP comprising an on-chip, general purpose, digital processor.