A Low-Power Duty-Cycled Impulse-Radio Ultrawideband (IR-UWB) Transmitter with Bandwidth and Frequency Reconfigurability Scheme Designed in 180 nm CMOS Process

One of the design challenges of the implantable medical devices (IMD) is the power requirement that needs to be minimum to avoid frequent battery-replacement and surgeries. This paper presents a duty-cycled IR-UWB transmitter designed using standard 180 nm CMOS process that achieves an energy efficiency (energy-per-pulse) of 11.5 pJ/pulse at 100 Mbps data rate. Working in the frequency range of 4 - 6 GHz, the transmitter achieves a peak power spectral density (PSD) of -42.1 dBm/MHz with 950 MHz bandwidth which makes it highly suitable for high data rate biotelemetry applications. The bandwidth of the proposed transmitter system can also be varied from 500 MHz-950 MHz using control voltage of the impulse generator (IG). The wide frequency range and bandwidth range of the proposed transmitter also makes it highly suitable for distributed brain implant applications covering both lower and upper UWB frequency bands.