Patent ID: 8581768

Claim:
An apparatus for converting a continuous-time, continuously variable signal into a sampled and quantized signal, comprising: an input line for accepting an input signal that is continuous in time and continuously variable; a plurality of processing branches coupled to the input line, each of said processing branches including: (a) an analog bandpass filter, (b) a sampling/quantization circuit coupled to an output of the analog bandpass filter, and (c) a digital bandpass filter coupled to an output of the sampling/quantization circuit; and an adder coupled to outputs of the plurality of processing branches, wherein the digital bandpass filters in different ones of the plurality of processing branches have frequency response bandwidths that are centered at different frequencies, and wherein the analog bandpass filters in different ones of the plurality of processing branches have frequency responses with bandwidths that are at least 25% greater than the frequency response bandwidths of the digital bandpass filters in their respective processing branches.