We present a channel signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) estimator for <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">M</i> -ary phase shift keying (M-PSK) and differential M-PSK. The estimator is non data aided and is shown to have the following advantages: 1) It does not require prior carrier synchronization; 2) the estimator has a compact fixed-point hardware implementation suitable for field-programmable gate arrays and application-specific integrated circuits; 3) it requires only 1 sample/symbol; 4) accurate estimates can be generated in real time; and 5) the estimator is resistant to imperfections in the automatic gain control circuit. We investigate the proposed estimator theoretically and through simulations. In particular, we investigate the required quantization necessary to achieve a good estimator performance. General formulas are developed for SNR estimation in the presence of frequency-flat slow fading, and specific results are presented for Nakagami-m fading. The proposed estimator is then compared with other SNR estimators, and it is shown that the proposed method requires less hardware resources while, at the same time, providing comparable or superior performance.