A 3.54 nJ/bit-RX, 0.671 nJ/bit-TX burst mode super-regenerative UWB transceiver in 0.18- μm CMOS

• Main Authors: Zheng, Yuanjin, Zhu, Yao, Ang, Chyuen-Wei, Gao, Yuan, Heng, Chun-Huat
• Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Integrated circuits
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/103627; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/24511
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Non-coherent ultra-wideband (UWB) transceiver employing energy detector suffers from degradation in output SNR due to the squarer. A burst mode super-regenerative UWB transceiver which can recover the received signal to rail-to-rail with relatively fewer post-amplification stages is proposed. Unlike other super-regenerative receiver architectures that use oscillator, the proposed architecture employs a positive feedback loop to achieve the super-regeneration of received signal and thus eliminates the need for external resonator or quench signal. The transceiver is suitable for low data rate sensor networks application covering spectrum of 3-5 GHz. Manufactured in CMOS 0.18-μm technology, the transceiver occupies an area of 2.2 mm × 2 mm. By exploiting the duty cycle and the transceiver on-time through the burst mode operation for a given data rate of 1 Mbps, it can achieve transmitter energy efficiency of 0.671 nJ/bit and receiver energy efficiency of 3.54 nJ/bit.