The effects of finite bit precision for a VLSI implementation of the Constant Modulus Algorithm

One of the most popular blind equalization techniques is the Constant Modulus Algorithm (CMA), and it has gained popularity in the literature and in practice because of its LMS-like complexity and its robustness to non-ideal, but practical, conditions. Although CMA has been well-studied in the literature, these analyses have typically implemented the algorithm using "infinite" precision arithmetic. The motivation for this paper is a VLSI implementation of a high data rate, fractionally spaced, linear forward equalizer whose taps are adjusted using CR;ZA. In this paper we examine how implementing CMA using finite bit precisions affects the algorithm's performance.