Patent ID: 7403756

Claim:
A signal processing apparatus, comprising: a high band front-end which processes signals in a first bandwidth; and a low band front-end which processes signals in a second bandwidth, comprising: one or more isolation amplifiers; at least one array of two or more MEMS (microelectromechanical systems)-based components selected from the group consisting of filters and resonators, separated by the one or more isolation amplifiers, in selectable cascade; an analog-to-digital converter; a clock; and a numerically-controlled oscillator; wherein signals processed by the low band front-end are passed through the array of MEMS-based components before the signal is processed by the analog-to-digital converter, and the sample frequency of the analog-to-digital converter is regulated by the clock which is controlled by the numerically-controlled oscillator; wherein the low band front-end processes signals in the second bandwidth utilizing direct sampling, the high band front-end processes signals in the first bandwidth, the first bandwidth comprising signal frequencies outside the bandwidth of the second bandwidth, the high band front-end translates signals in the first bandwidth to the second bandwidth and utilizes the low band front-end to process the translated signal.