A CMOS UWB-IR Receiver Analog Front End with Intermittent Operation

A low power receiver analog front end (AFE) for ultra-wideband impulse radio (UWB-IR) was developed in 0.18μm CMOS. All circuits of the receiver AFE operate intermittently with a sampling clock of an analog-digital converter (ADC). The sampling rate of the ADC is equal to pulse repetition frequency of the received signals. Power consumption of the receiver AFE is decreased 60% by intermittent operation without degrading of receiver sensitivity. As a result, the power consumption of the receiver AFE is 38mW at 258kbps data rate.