A 750 Mb/s, 12 pJ/b, 6-to-10 GHz CMOS IR-UWB transmitter with embedded on-chip antenna

This paper presents a novel impulse radio based ultra-wideband transmitter. The transmitter is designed in 0.18$\ \mu$m CMOS process realizing extremely low complexity and low power. It exploits the 6-to-10 GHz band to generate short duration bi-phase modulated UWB pulses with a center frequency of 8 GHz. No additional RF filtering circuits are required since the pulse generator circuit itself has the functionality of pulse shaping. Generated pulses comply with the FCC spectral emission mask. Measured results show that the transmitter consumes 12 pJ/b to achieve a maximum pulse repetition rate of 750 Mb/s. An optional embedded on-chip antenna and a power amplifier operating in 610 GHz band are also designed and investigated as a future low cost solution for very short distance IR-UWB communications.