A novel 21-35 GHz single-balanced quadruple subharmonic monolithic passive mixer is fabricated using the 0.15 μm GaAs pHEMT process. This mixer consists of a local oscillation (LO) spiral balun and a radio frequency (RF) band pass filter which has an intermediate frequency (IF) extracted feature utilizing a pair of anti-parallel Schottky barrier diode to achieve quadruple subharmonic mixing mechanism. The RF band pass filter formed with an interdigital coupler and a low-pass network is used to reduce the chip dimension while operating at a low frequency band and to improve the isolation between the RF and IF ports with a broadband operation. From the measured results, the mixer exhibits 11.3-15.1 dB conversion loss, 28.8 dB-high RF-to-IF isolation, 40 dB-high LO-to-RF isolation, 60 dB-high 3LO-to-RF isolation over a 21-35 GHz RF bandwidth, and an input 1 dB compression power of 4 dBm. The compact IF extraction circuit supports an IF frequency ranging from DC to 3.1 GHz. The core chip size is only 0.67 × 0.75 mm2.
2. Kanaya, K., K. Kawakami, T. Hisaka, T. Ishikawa, and S. Sakamoto, "A 94 GHz high performance quadruple subharmonic mixer MMIC," IEEE MTT-S Int. Microwave Symp. Dig., Vol. 2, 1249-1252, 2002.
3. Uhm, W.-Y., W.-S. Sul, H.-J. Han, S.-C. Kim, H.-S. Lee, D. An, S.-D. Kim, D.-H. Shin, H.-M. Park, and J.-K. Rhee, "A high performance v-band monolithic quadruple sub-harmonic mixer," IEEE MTT-S Int. Microwave Symp., Vol. 2, , 1319-1322, 2003.
4. Lin, C. H., Y. A. Lai, J. C. Chiu, and Y. H. Wang, "A 23-37 GHz miniature MMIC subharmonic mixer," IEEE Microw. Wireless Compon. Lett., Vol. 17, No. 9, 679-681, 2007.
doi:10.1109/LMWC.2007.903460
5. Lin, C. M., H. K. Lin, Y. A. Lai, C. P. Chang, and Y. H.Wang, "A 10-40 GHz broadband subharmonic monolithic mixer in 0:18 μm CMOS technology," IEEE Microw. Wireless Compon. Lett., Vol. 19, No. 2, 95-97, 2009.
doi:10.1109/LMWC.2008.2011330
6. Lin, C. M., J. T. Chang, C. C. Su, S. H. Hung, and Y. H.Wang, "A 16-31 GHz miniature quadruple sub-harmonic monolithic mixer with lumped diplexer," Progress In Electromagnetic Research Letters, Vol. 11, No. 2, 21-30, 2009.
doi:10.2528/PIERL09072705
7. Chien, W. C., C. M. Lin, C. H. Liu, S. H. Hung, and Y.-H. Wang, "Wide-band high isolation subharmonically pumped resistive mixer with active quasi-circulator," Progress In Electromagnetics Research Letters, Vol. 18, 135-143, 2010.
doi:10.2528/PIERL10091307
8. Kuo, C. L., C. C. Kuo, C. H. Lien, J. H. Tsai, and H. Wang, "A novel reduced-size rat-race broadside coupler and its application for CMOS distributed sub-harmonic mixer," IEEE Microw. Wireless Compon. Lett., Vol. 18, No. 3, 194-196, 2008.
doi:10.1109/LMWC.2008.916806
9. Medley, M. W., Microwave and RF Circuits: Analysis, Synthesis, and Design, Artech House, Inc., Norwood, MA, 1992.
Submit
