RSFQ front-end for a software radio receiver

We present results of a preliminary analysis of possible front-ends of a software defined radio base station receiver containing superconductor Rapid Single-Flux-Quantum (RSFQ) components. The main component of such a front-end, an oversampling analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with expected internal clock rate up to 20 GHz, has already been developed and fabricated with commercially available 3.5-mu m, 1-kA/cm(2) niobium-trilayer technology. Simulations show that, even with such crude feature size, the superconductor ADC components can outperform their semiconductor counterparts.