A 10 GS/s Distributed Waveform Generator for Sub-Nanosecond Pulse Generation and Modulation in 0.18μm Standard Digital CMOS

A distributed waveform generator is presented for sub-nanosecond pulse generation in UWB impulse radios. It time-interleaves multiple digital pulse generators, and uses an on-chip transmission line for wideband pulse combining. Compared to other UWB pulse generation and shaping solutions, it is low power and fully reconfigurable. A 10-tap, 10 GS/s prototype was implemented in 0.18μm standard digital CMOS. It consumes 50 mW at 1 GHz pulse repetition rate. On-off keying modulation is demonstrated using 16 Mb/s PRBS data.