A double balanced resistive down-conversion mixer integrated in BiCMOS SiGe technology for 79 GHz automotive radar

This paper focuses on the design of a 79 GHz double balanced direct down-converter that implements a resistive mixer using 0.13 mum CMOS transistors from a BiCMOS SiGe process. All the design methodology is discussed, including the expecting CMOS gates driving problems that can occur at such high frequencies. The circuit includes the three driving amplifiers on the three RF, OL and FI full-balanced ports, realized from HBT. Electrical simulations lead to a 18 dB conversion gain, 8 dB noise figure, -25 dBm IP_1dB with a 145 mW consumption under 2.5 V. To the authors´ knowledge, this is the first time a W-band silicon CMOS-based double-balanced resistive mixer is presented.