Design of a wideband delay element for transmitted reference UWB receivers

The transmitted reference ultra-wideband (TR-UWB) scheme has generated considerable interest in the field of UWB radio and on-chip wireless interconnect systems. This paper presents a wideband delay element (WBDE) which is a major design concern for TR-UWB transceivers and introduces a novel WBDE architecture that eliminates the need for dual bipolar power supplies. A very wide range of delays of monotonic nature (100-1000 ps) can be achieved by varying the dimensions of the transistors, the power supply voltage, the shunt capacitances and the number of stages in the delay chain. The WBDE, designed using IBM® 90 nm CMOS technology, would make the circuit implementation of TR-UWB schemes realizable.