A 0.18 um RF CMOS Ultra Wide Band Transmitter Front End RFIC

Abstract

This paper presents a 0.18/spl mu/m RF CMOS ultra wide band (UWB) transmitter front end RFIC for wireless sensor network applications. The proposed UWB transmitter is designed to generate a bandwidth (-10dB) of more than 1 GHz at center frequencies of 4 GHz or 8 GHz, in the form of 1ns gated wideband pulses with DBPSK/BPSK modulation. Two single-band prototype transmitters are designed and fabricated as part of multi-band UWB transmitter under development. Wideband phase-locked loops (PLL) are integrated into the transmitter design targeting a single chip solution. A novel pulse generator control circuit has been demonstrated to generate the desired 1ns pulses. The 4 GHz integrated transmitter chip generates an output power of -6.5dBm from its buffered VCO output and consumes a current of 14mA.