Energy efficient transmitters for high data rate biomedical applications

In this paper, we examine techniques to achieve both spectrum and energy efficient transmitters, targeting for high data rate biomedical applications. These applications benefit from asymmetric data link, where energy efficient high data rate transmitter and low data rate receiver are usually integrated. Injection locking LC oscillator and ring oscillator are employed here to achieve efficient PSK modulation. QPSK/O-QPSK/8PSK modulation with EVM of 6.4%/4.5%/3.8% have been demonstrated at data rate of 10Mbps~90Mbps with the lowest reported energy efficiency of 118pJ/bit and 17pJ/bit. Due to the architectural simplification, only active area of 0.28mm² and 0.038mm² are required for the transmitters.