A Power Efficient K-Band Upconverter

A low power, active GaAs-HBT upconverter applicable in a receiver front-end for K band wireless sensor networks is presented. Reducing DC energy consumption while still providing adequate gain is the main task of the presented architecture. The 2 GHz input signal is converted to 24 GHz with a gain of 5.8 dB using a 1 dBm LO source and only 15 mW DC power. Conversion gain of 3.5 dB can be achieved with 7.5 mW DC power. Dissipating very low power while still providing high conversion gain makes the circuit applicable in sensor networks with low battery capacity.