Abstract: A communication system and method is disclosed that performs symbol boundary synchronization by generating a symbol alignment estimate from a partial signal correlation; and then refining the symbol alignment estimate via a carrier phase calculation. To generate the symbol alignment estimate, two methods are disclosed. After an estimate is determined, an embodiment provides for refining the symbol alignment estimate via a carrier phase calculation by determining a carrier phase of two adjacent carriers, determining a phase error as directly proportional to an offset from the start of a symbol, determining a phase difference contribution due to a communication channel and device hardware, and counter-rotating the determined carrier phase by an angle of a constellation point at a transmitter.

Abstract: A multicarrier transceiver is disclosed that includes a digital signal processor with a plurality of memory locations, a direct memory, an encoder module coupled to receive data from the FIFO buffers, a decoder module coupled to receive data from the FIFO buffers, a Fourier transform module configured to perform an inverse Fast Fourier transform for transmit operations and to perform Fast Fourier transform (FFT) operations for receive operations, a plurality of distributed modules including the encoder module, the decoder module and the Fourier transform module, each module configured with a memory port, each memory port coupled to a peripheral bus and the DMA bus, a plurality of memory ports coupled to each of the distributed modules, the plurality of memory ports coupled to a peripheral bus, and a plurality of point-to-point buses coupled to each of the distributed modules, the point-to-point bus configured to enable data flow and testing and provide a bypass capability for each of the distributed modules.