Within many applications impulse radio based ultra-wideband (IR-UWB) transmission offers significant benefits for very short range high data rate communications when compared with existing standards and protocols. In many of these applications the main design goals are very low power consumption and very low complexity design for easy integration and cost reduction. Digitally programmable IR-UWB transmitters using an on-off keying modulation scheme on a 0.13 microns CMOS process operating on 1.2V supply and yielding power consumption as low as 0.9 mW at a 10 Mbps data rate with dynamic power control are enabled. The IR-UWB transmitters support new frequency hopping techniques providing more efficient spectrum usage and dynamic allocation of the spectrum when transmitting in highly congested frequency bands. Biphasic scrambling is also introduced for spectral line reduction. Additionally, an energy detection receiver for IR-UWB is presented to similarly meet these design goals whilst being adaptable to address IR-UWB transmitter specificity.

A spread spectrum switching converter converts an input power to an output power. The spread spectrum switching converter includes a pulse width modulation (PWM) circuit and a pulse omission control circuit. The PWM circuit generate an initial PWM signal according to a feedback signal related to the output power. The initial PWM signal controls at least one switch to switch an inductor to generate the output power. The pulse omission control circuit generates a pulse omission control signal to mask a portion of pulses of the initial PWM signal, to thereby generate an adjusted PWM signal. The pulse omission control circuit randomly adjusts the pulse width of the pulse omission control signal according to a random control signal, such that the adjusted PWM signal has a spread spectrum characteristic.

A signal transmitter may include a waveform synthesis circuit and a signal transmission circuit. The waveform synthesis circuit may store values of a reference waveform for a selected channel of the signal transmitter, and use the stored values to generate values of reference waveforms for one or more other channels of the signal transmitter. The waveform synthesis circuit may further include a sampling boost circuit to generate one or more additional values for the reference waveforms. The waveform transmission circuit may generate signals for the channels of the signal transmitter based at least in part on the values of the reference waveforms, and transmit the signals via one or more antennas.

A method for generating an ultra-wideband signal is provided. The method comprises the steps of generating at least one ultra-wideband pulse envelope comprising a main pulse and a precursor pulse, the precursor pulse being shorter in length and lower in amplitude compared to the main pulse, and modulating a carrier signal in amplitude such that the envelope corresponds to the at least one ultra-wideband pulse envelope and such that the carrier signal within the main pulse is phase-shifted with respect to the carrier signal within the precursor pulse.