Chip-Package and Antenna Co-Design of a Tunable UWB Transmitter in System-on-Package with On-Chip versus Off-Chip Passives

In this paper we present a self-powered CMOS ultra wideband radio transmitter integrated in a liquid-crystal polymer (LCP) based system on package (SoP) module with an embedded small antenna. Chip-package-antenna co-design is performed for this module in the presence of unwanted packaging parasitic effects and optimizes the transmission efficiency. Our contribution includes new modeling of the RF-package and antenna and co-optimizing the chip and package design with on-chip versus off-chip passives trade-offs. The SoP module consists of an innovative tunable low power CMOS transmitter for IR-UWB communication, a double-slotted small-size embedded UWB antenna, and a power converter. The output amplitude and duration of the transmitter can be tuned to transmit a signal meeting the FCC mask in different pulse repetition rate for long and short range applications. This ability can also be used to compensate the process and temperature variations as well as the parasitic effects of packaging and antenna. The antenna has a return loss of better than -10dB. The power converter consists of a chain of surface mounted Schottky diodes and capacitors, which converts incident electromagnetic waves to DC supply and thus power up the transmitter. The final module is implemented in LCP substrate with integrated passive components and embedded antenna. The chip part is implemented in 0.18mum CMOS process