Low-power ultra-Wide-Band Impulse Radio transceivers for short range communications

After having long been used in military radio applications, Ultra-Wideband Impulse Radio (UWB-IR) is now emerging as a communication technology suitable for short-range, low data-rate radio links in applications with a tight energy budget. As a significant example of this trend, in this work we will present a fully integrated UWB-IR transceiver front-end operating in the 7.25 - 8.5 GHz band designed for high overall transmission and detection energy efficiency and robustness to interferers. The results that will be reported give favorable indications about the practical feasibility of sub-nJ/bit radio transceivers capable of operating over a few meters link.