Design of single balanced millimeter-wave sub-harmonic mixer circuits

As the demand of broadband and high speed communication increases, high performance sub-harmonic mixer solution becomes more and more important for millimeter-wave frequency applications. Low Conversion Loss (CL), high LO to RF/IF isolation, low spurs leakage and high linearity are desired features that are challenging to reach at the same time in SHM designs. This paper briefly reviews three designs of passive single balanced sub-harmonic mixers and identify promising topologies that could further improve SHM performances in terms of CL, isolation and spurs level.