Ultra-wideband impulse radio transceivers are becoming a key building block for establishing ultralow power wireless sensor networks. However, impulse radio transmitters commonly suffer from a low spectral quality and a coarse frequency tuning resolution, which limits their global applicability. In this article, we present a fully integrated ultralow power impulse radio transmitter front-end (TFE) whose pulse shaping capabilities and integrated output matching network make it globally applicable up to a 4-MHz pulse repetition rate. We demonstrate a digital carrier frequency-tuning method that achieves a 28-MHz resolution over the frequency band of 6.0–8.5 GHz. In addition, we show that the temperature dependence of the TFE’s carrier frequency can be compensated digitally over the industrial temperature range from −40°C to 85 °C. The proposed TFE supports energy-harvesting applications particularly well due to its low leakage power level of 380 nW and a high tolerance to power supply transients during pulse generation. It is demonstrated to operate robustly with low-drive regulators powered by low-quality sources. The TFE is fabricated in a 65-nm CMOS process. It generates 1.8-pJ pulses at a 7.5-GHz carrier frequency while consuming 63 pJ per pulse, corresponding to 2.3% efficiency.

中文翻译：

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用于能量收集设备的完全集成的可编程 6.0-8.5GHz UWB IR 发射器前端

超宽带脉冲无线电收发器正在成为建立超低功耗无线传感器网络的关键组成部分。然而，脉冲无线电发射机普遍存在频谱质量低和频率调谐分辨率粗糙的问题，这限制了它们的全球适用性。在本文中，我们展示了一种完全集成的超低功率脉冲无线电发射器前端 (TFE)，其脉冲整形功能和集成输出匹配网络使其在全球范围内适用于高达 4 MHz 的脉冲重复率。我们展示了一种数字载波频率调谐方法，该方法可在 6.0–8.5 GHz 频段上实现 28 MHz 的分辨率。此外，我们表明 TFE 载波频率的温度依赖性可以在 -40°C 至 85°C 的工业温度范围内进行数字补偿。由于其 380 nW 的低泄漏功率水平和脉冲生成期间对电源瞬变的高耐受性，提议的 TFE 特别好地支持能量收集应用。它被证明可以与由低质量电源供电的低驱动稳压器一起稳健运行。TFE 采用 65 纳米 CMOS 工艺制造。它在 7.5 GHz 载波频率下产生 1.8 pJ 脉冲，同时每个脉冲消耗 63 pJ，对应于 2.3% 的效率。