On the Design and Development of a Terrestrial Digital Video Broadcast Demodulator

The Terrestrial Digital Video Broadcast (DVB-T) system, specified in the ETSI 300-744 standard, is currently the most popular digital television system with more than 120 million receivers deployed globally in integrated television sets, set-top boxes, in-car modules, USB sticks and PC-cards. A provider of multi-media ASIC in Asia required a DVB-T demodulation core as part of its strategy to broaden its stake in this growing market. To meet this challenge, Bell Labs designed and implemented the underlying multi-mode OFDM-based receiver. This technical memorandum presents an overview of the DVB-T system and the essential elements of the demodulator design. It also describes the underlying signal processing algorithms and validation.