Abstract
Ultra-wideband impulse radio transceivers are becoming a key building block for establishing ultralow power wireless sensor networks. However, impulse radio transmitters commonly suffer from a low spectral quality and a coarse frequency tuning resolution, which limits their global applicability. In this article, we present a fully integrated ultralow power impulse radio transmitter front-end (TFE) whose pulse shaping capabilities and integrated output matching network make it globally applicable up to a 4-MHz pulse repetition rate. We demonstrate a digital carrier frequency-tuning method that achieves a 28-MHz resolution over the frequency band of 6.0–8.5 GHz. In addition, we show that the temperature dependence of the TFE’s carrier frequency can be compensated digitally over the industrial temperature range from −40°C to 85 °C. The proposed TFE supports energy-harvesting applications particularly well due to its low leakage power level of 380 nW and a high tolerance to power supply transients during pulse generation. It is demonstrated to operate robustly with low-drive regulators powered by low-quality sources. The TFE is fabricated in a 65-nm CMOS process. It generates 1.8-pJ pulses at a 7.5-GHz carrier frequency while consuming 63 pJ per pulse, corresponding to 2.3% efficiency.
Highlights
T HE number of smart devices connected to the internet is predicted to grow exponentially in the near future [1] to support a variety of new services in, for instance, health care, smart homes, and industry automation
We propose a delay chain tuning method based on integrated capacitive supply voltage dividers that allows tuning the transmitter front-end (TFE) carrier frequency digitally
On the edge-combining architecture, integrated in a 65-nm The total parallel capacitance in the bank is given by the sum of the fine unit capacitors C f, coarse unit capacitors Cc, and capacitor C0, according to
Summary
T HE number of smart devices connected to the internet is predicted to grow exponentially in the near future [1] to support a variety of new services in, for instance, health care, smart homes, and industry automation. Where Ps is the transmitter’s static power consumption level, Epp is the amount of energy consumed per generated pulse, E p is the pulse energy, and η is the energy efficiency Both Ps and η have to be optimized to make an UWB IR transceiver energy efficient over a wide range of PRRs. The vast majority of recently published low-power UWB IRs target the U.S UWB mask between 3.1 and 4.8 GHz, regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The TFE has a good energy efficiency and a very low static power consumption level, which allows for low-power operation over a wide range of PRRs. The TFE’s low power consumption level and high tolerance to supply transients improve its support for energy-harvesting applications. We provide a comprehensive description of the TFE with a focus on the proposed delay chain design and the TFE’s operation with low-drive voltage regulators.
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