A time-varying matching scheme for pulse-based high-Q receivers

A time-varying matching scheme for pulse-based receiving systems with high-Q sources is introduced. The proposed technique explores the time-domain characteristics of the incoming pulse and hence improves the performance of the matching network by adapting it to the signal in real time. The matching scheme is applied to a high-Q RF front-end in the receiving mode resulting in a simple switched capacitor design. Measurement and simulation results show that the proposed design is able to improve the system energy efficiency while minimizing pulse dispersion that is one of the major limitations in conventional matching networks. It is also shown that the proposed matching scheme has the ability to discriminate closely-aligned pulses. These advantages make the proposed technique suitable for receiving systems under common modulation schemes such as pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) and on-off keying (OOK).