SBIR Phase I: Clock-on-Demand: High Performance, Ultra Low Power

该小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段研究项目旨在开发一种解决低功耗超宽带(UWB)发射机设计的基本问题的解决方案，该发射机专门应用于无源射频识别(RFID)领域。虽然从每比特功率的角度来看，UWB无线电固有的低功耗和高效率，但其高数据速率和强制更高的频谱利用率使得精确、快速并因此大而耗能的振荡器势在必行。无源无线电和由询问设备产生的电磁场供电的一类无线电设备负担不起快速嵌入式振荡器，因为它们都受到尺寸和成本的限制。然而，与任何无线电技术一样，这类射频设备将受益于UWB技术提供的功能和优势。将有可能设计一种完全无源标签，它使用UWB作为无源单元和询问器之间的上行链路通信手段。然而，支持其扩展的技术不能在标签和读取器之间提供健壮的通信和信令。此外，今天的技术只支持低标签密度(10s标签/秒/m2)，而将推动RFID市场指数级扩张的应用，如销售点、库存管理、货架管理等，需要100s和1000s标签/秒/m2。所提出的产生快速按需时钟的方法为无源无线电和类似的极其有限的功率预算设备提供了超低功率时钟解决方案。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I research project is to develop a solution to a fundamental issue in low power Ultra Wide Band (UWB) transmitter design to be specifically applied to the field of passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). Although UWB radio is inherently low power and efficient from a power per bit point of view, its high data rates and mandated higher spectral utilization make a precise and fast and thereby large and power dissipating oscillator imperative. Passive radio and the class of radio devices that are powered by the EM field generated by the interrogating device cannot afford a fast embedded oscillator, since they are both constrained by size and cost. However, as any radio technology, this class of RF devices would benefit from the features and advantages offered by the UWB technology. It will be possible to design a completely passive tag that uses UWB as means of uplink communication between thepassive unit and the interrogator.RFID is an exponentially growing market. However, the technology that supports its expansion is not able to provide robust communication and signaling between a tag and a reader. Furthermore, today's technology only supports a low tag density (10s of tags/sec/m2), while the applications that will fuel the exponential expansion of the RFID market, like point-of-sale, inventory management, shelf management, etc., require 100s and 1000s of tags/sec/m2. The proposed approach to generating a fast on-demand clock offers an ultra-low power clock solution for passive radio and similar extremely constrained power budget devices.