Broadband Optimisation of Microwave Mixers for Signal and Noise Performance

The numerical optimisation of microwave mixers for signal and noise performance is carried out in a general-purpose harmonic-balance (HB) environment. The mixer can be simultaneously specified for all the performance indexes of interest, including the noise figure, at an arbitrary number of discrete frequencies across a finite band. Frequency conversion analysis is used in conjunction with the HB technique to evaluate all the network functions in a unified way. A fast quasi-analytic algorithm for gradient computation allows the efficient use of modern gradient-based minimisation algorithms.