Monolithic GaAs Blanking Upconverter

A wideband GaAs monolithic blanking upconverter is described to upconvert a frequency range of 0.1 - 0.5 GHz to 1.1 - 2.5 GHz. The upconverter consists of a wideband FET double balanced mixer, LO and IF input amplifiers, a novel actively matched 180° phase splitter and an RF amplifier. The upconverter provides a conversion gain of 8 dB, input and output VSWRs of less than 1.6 and a 40 dB on/off blanking capability. The high level of integration utilizing all active matching is realized in a small size of 1.22 × 1.22 mm. A good agreement between the simulated and measured results was obtained.