Design and analysis of a compact UWB pulse generator with programmable pulse shape

We present a programmable ultra-wideband (UWB) pulse generator designed and simulated in 90 nm CMOS technology. The design receives an input square pulse and uses a pulse-combinatorial method to generate an output pulse composed of six individual impulses, each independently adjustable in both amplitude and delay. Additionally, the final pulse width can be adjusted. The design uses a 1.2 V supply and is compact (core area ~0.1 mm²). A digital memory block is used to retain the control bits that describe two different pulse shapes for purposes of demonstrating binary modulation schemes, including phase-shift keying, pulse-position modulation, or pulse-shape modulation at rates up to 2 Gbps. The design can produce pulses respecting the FCC-defined UWB indoor frequency mask, and consumes about 54 mW at the peak data rate, representing a pulse efficiency of 27 pJ/pulse.