Brevet US6060915 - Charge transfer wideband sample-hold circuit

United States Patent [w]

McEwan

[54] CHARGE TRANSFER WIDEBAND SAMPLEHOLD CIRCUIT

[76] Inventor: Thomas E. McEwan, 1734 Cairo St., Livermore, Calif. 94550

[21] Appl. No.: 09/080,502 [22] Filed: May 18, 1998

[51] Int. CI.7 G11C 27/02

[52] U.S. CI 327/94

[58] Field of Search 327/91, 92, 93,

327/94, 96, 97; 341/122

[56] References Cited

U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS

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(List continued on next page.) FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS WO91/13370 5/1991 WIPO .

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Scott, William B., "UWB Technologies Show Potential For High-Speed, Covert Communications", [Aviation Week & Space Technology], 40,44, (Jun. 4, 1990).

Scott, William B., "Defense Dept. Panel of Radar Experts To Study Ultra-Wideband Technologies", [Aviation Week & Space Technology], 55, (Mar. 26, 1990).

Bennett, Leonard C. et al., "Time-Domain Electromagnetics and Its Applications" [Proceedings of the IEEE], 66, 3, 299-316 (Mar. 3, 1978).

Anderson, Forrest et al., "Wideband Beam Patterns From Sparse Arrays" [Proceedings of the First Los Alamos Symposium], 273-286.

Bretthorst, G. Larry, "Radar Target Discrimination Using Probability Theory" [Proceedings of the First Los Alamos Symposium], 417^-34.

"Pulse and Waveform Generation with Step Recovery
Diodes", Hewlett Packard Application Note 918,
Hewlett-Packard, Jun. 1986, pp. 1-22.

Primary Examiner—My-Trang Nu Ton
Attorney, Agent, or Firm—Haynes & Beffel LLP

[57] ABSTRACT

A wideband sample-hold circuit is formed with a single diode in a minimum component configuration. Agate circuit comprised of a first capacitor and an impedance element forms a gate pulse, stores the sampled signal charge on the first capacitor, and transfers the charge to a second capacitor via the impedance element. The impedance element also defines the gate pulse width, in combination with the first capacitor. In a preferred mode, the first capacitor is responsive to individual gate pulses while the larger second capacitor integrates charge packets from the first capacitor due to multiple gate pulses to provide an integrated baseband output. In radar rangefinder applications, the baseband output is an equivalent time replica of the RF input. The sample-hold circuit has other applications in radar motion sensing and time domain reflectomitry.

31 Claims, 3 Drawing Sheets