A 6μW, 100Kbps, 3–5GHz, UWB impulse radio transmitter

In this paper we present the design and the measured results for a FCC-compliant UWB impulse transmitter (Tx) designed to operate in the 3–5GHz range. The transmitter uses a fast start-up, duty-cycled, current-starved ring-oscillator topology. A triangular pulse-shaping technique is utilized for spectrum-shaping to facilitate FCC compliance. The designed transmitter can be controlled to operate in 3-different bands centered at 3.5GHz, 4.0GHz, and 4.5GHz, with good inter-band isolation. The chip was fabricated in a 90nm CMOS technology, and was measured to consume only 2.8µW of leakage power and 2.9 µW at 100Kbps of dynamic power. The data-rate can be scaled up to 5Mbps at 29pJ/pulse, while still staying compliant with FCC-mask even with non-random pulsing. The output voltage swing was measured to be ~450–500mV across a 50Q load. The total power consumption of ~6µW at 100Kbps is an order of magnitude better than that of state-of-the-art designs, i.e. ~100µW, operating at same pulse rate.