A multicarrier demodulator (MCD) suitable for advanced digital satellite communications is presented. This system permits the direct interfacing of FDMA and TDM communication links by using digital signal processing techniques. Two main functions are implemented by an MCD: demultiplexing and demodulation. We focus here only on a digital implementation of an MCD with a view to achieving flexibility, better performance and suitability for VLSI.The demultiplexer is implemented according to a per-channel structure based on an analytic signal method that allows a highly modular and flexible implementation to be achieved. This approach permits a certain degree of integration of the demultiplexer and demodulator functions. In the proposed MCD scheme the receiver pulse-shaping filter can be integrated in the demultiplexer structure, thus lowering the overall implementation complexity. Coherent demodulation is used to reduce the signal-to-noise ratio required to achieve a specified bit error rate and is carried out using the maximum likelihood (ML) estimation method. A maximuma posterioriprobability (MAP) method is used to jointly estimate the carrier phase and bit timing of the received signal. The digital architecture of the proposed MCD can be adapted to different digital modulation techniques. However, we focus here on the application for QPSK signals, since this modulation scheme is of interest in digital satellite communications. A theoretical analysis and computer simulations are performed in order to evaluate the performance degradation of the proposed MCD, including the finite arithmetic implementation.