Carrier-based UWB impulse radio: simplicity, flexibility, and pulser implementation in 0.18-micron CMOS

Emerging impulse-based ultra-wideband (UWB) technology shows strong advantages for the implementation of low-power transceivers. In this paper we propose a carrier-based UWB system that brings two distinctive advantages over other UWB systems: 1) lower power operation due to the fact that signal processing is optimally partitioned between analog and digital baseband; 2) better spectrum utilization enabling spectrum diversity and multi-user systems. One of the core blocks in this UWB system is the pulser that serves as the transmitter RF front-end and that serves as the template generator in the receiver. We demonstrate a carrier-based low-cost and low-power UWB pulser ASIC fabricated in a 0.18 μm CMOS digital process. The power measurements indicate that our UWB pulser ASIC outperforms the other low-data rate solutions due to its lower baseline power consumption.