Design of impulse distributed waveform generator

Abstract

This paper presents the design and implementation of impulse distributed waveform generator which generates Ultra Wide Band pulses. The generated Ultra Wide Band pulses are in the frequency range of 1GHz to 8GHz. It uses time-interleaved impulse generators to generate the impulses. The trigger signal is supplied to the time-interleaved impulse generators with a specified delay. Frequency variation is achieved by tuning the trigger delay as well as tuning the width of the impulses generated. The trigger delay is varied from 30ps to 100ps, and the width of an impulse is varied from 80ps to 1ns. The generated impulses are shaped by a pulse shaping circuit, which performs pulse amplitude tuning. The generated impulses are combined using on-chip transmission line, which reduces the loss, as well as increase the bandwidth. The energy efficiency of the circuit is 15pJ/pulse which is considerably lesser than the existing system. Power consumption is reduced by introducing low voltage current mirror to the existing system which reduces the voltage levels of the circuit. The baseband data can be directly used as the trigger signal which explains OOK modulation capabilities.