A 3–5 GHz IR-UWB receiver front-end for wireless sensor networks

This paper presents a impulse-radio ultra-wideband (IR-UWB) receiver front-end covering the frequency band of 3-5 GHz intended for low power, low data-rate communication over a relative short range for such applications like wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The receiver front-end was designed and verified in 90 nm CMOS provided by TSMC. It employs direct-conversion (homodyne) architecture, and occupies a chip area of 0.9 mm². The receiver exhibits a peak gain of 45 dB at 4 GHz, and consumes a total power of 26.6 mW from a 1.2 V supply voltage. Input return loss, S₁₁ ≤ -12 dB, and noise figure (NF) is between 8 dB and 9 dB through 3-5 GHz bandwidth.