A 0.32nJ/bit noncoherent UWB impulse Radio transceiver with baseband synchronization and a fully digital transmitter

This paper presents a low-power noncoherent ultrawideband (UWB) impulse-radio (IR) transceiver operating at 5GHz in 0.13-μm CMOS. The super-regenerative amplifier (SRA) based energy-detection receiver utilizes early/late detection for a two-step baseband synchronization algorithm. A fully-digital transmitter generates a shaped output pulse of 1GHz 3-dB bandwidth. DLLs provide a PVTtolerant time-step resolution of 1ns over the entire symbol period and regulate the pulse generator center frequency. Measured results show a receiver efficiency of 0.32nJ/bit at 20.8Mb/s and operation with inputs as low as -70dBm. The transmitter outputs -31dBm (0.88pJ/pulse at 1Mpulse/s) with a dynamic (energy) efficiency of 16pJ/pulse.