Abstract: The present invention significantly reduces the number of complex computations that must be performed in computing the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) and inverse DFT (IDFT) operations. In particular, the DFT and IDFT operations are computed using the same computing device. The computation operations are substantially identical for both operations with the exception that for the IDFT operation, the data are complex conjugated before and after processing. Using the same computing device/operations, both DFT and IDFT computations are optimized for maximum efficiency. A common transform process is selectively connected to first and second data processing paths. A DFT operation is performed on an N-point sequence on the first data processing path, and an IDFT operation is performed on an N-point sequence on the second data processing path using the same N-point fast Fourier transform (FFT).