This article puts the spotlight on the receiver front-end (RFE), an integral part of any wireless device that information theory typically idealizes into a mere addition of noise. While this idealization was sound in the past, as operating frequencies, bandwidths, and antenna counts rise, a soaring amount of power is required for the RFE to behave accordingly. Containing this surge in power expenditure exposes a harsher behavior on the part of the RFE (more noise, nonlinearities, and coarse quantization), setting up a tradeoff between the spectral efficiency under such nonidealities and the efficiency in the use of energy by the RFE. With the urge for radically better power consumptions and energy efficiencies in 6G, this emerges as an issue on which information theory can cast light at a fundamental level. More broadly, this article advocates the interest of having information theory embrace the device power consumption in its analyses. In turn, this calls for new models and abstractions such as the ones herein put together for the RFE, and for a more holistic perspective.

翻译：本文聚焦于接收机前端（RFE），这是任何无线设备中不可或缺的组成部分，而信息论通常将其理想化为纯粹的噪声叠加。尽管这种理想化在过去是合理的，但随着工作频率、带宽和天线数量的增加，为维持RFE相应性能所需的功耗急剧上升。限制这种功耗增长会暴露RFE更严苛的行为特征（更多噪声、非线性效应和粗糙量化），从而在非理想条件下的频谱效率与RFE的能量利用效率之间形成权衡。鉴于6G对功耗和能量效率的根本性改善需求，这成为信息论可从基础层面阐明的重要课题。更广泛而言，本文倡导将设备功耗纳入信息论分析框架的价值。这需要建立新型模型与抽象方法（例如本文为RFE构建的系统框架），并采用更全面的视角。