A fully integrated low power PAM multi-channel UWB transmitter

A new transmitter for ultra-wideband (UWB) impulse radio is described in this paper. The new UWB transmitter implements a low power Gaussian shaping filter to reduce the side-lobe in the frequency domain. A simple pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) circuit is used to keep the power consumption low. The proposed architecture features the simple design, low-power operation, and enables the pulse-shape generation for a multi-channel UWB. The core layout size is only 0.2 mm². The simulation results show that the generated signals satisfy the FCC spectrum mask, and the average power consumption is <1.97 mW for the 1.8 V supply voltage. Pulses are transmitted at a PRF (pulse repetition frequency) of 40.5 MHz in 500 MHz bandwidth channels equally spaced within the 3.1–10.6 GHz UWB. This transmitter is designed and fabricated in a 0.18-μm CMOS process.