An Ultralow-Power Dual-Band UWB Impulse Radio

Abstract

In this brief, we present a dual-band ultralow-power ultrawideband (UWB) impulse radio (UWB-IR) transceiver in a 90-nm CMOS process for low-data-rate UWB on-off keying (OOK) communications. The dual-band topology enables separation of timing and data impulses for simplified synchronization and duty cycling. The receiver can dynamically switch between two 500-MHz bands centered at 3.5 and 4.5 GHz with an interband isolation of 30 dB. With a fast turn-on time of ~1-2 ns, the total power requirement of the duty-cycled receiver (Rx) block is measured to be 12 μW at 100 kb/s for a Rx sensitivity of -87 dBm and a bit error rate (BER) of 10-3. The dual-band impulse-based transmitter (Tx) is designed using a duty-cycled LC oscillator topology enabled only when a transmission is requested and consumes only 8 μW at 100 kpulse/s. For a BER of 10-3 , the instantaneous signal-to-interference ratio was measured to be better than -50 dB for a 2.4-GHz narrowband interferer. The total power for the transceiver at 20 μW is an order of magnitude better than state-of-the-art designs for comparable performance.