A four-way FDM intermediate frequency module for E-band communication applications

This paper describes a four-path wideband intermediate frequency (IF) module with transceiver (TRX) functions for E-band application. To realize high capacity, the bandwidth of the IF module should be chosen considerately. The proposed IF module consists of four paths, which are combined by a combiner in the transmitter channel or separated by a splitter in the receiver channel, respectively. For each path, it includes an amplifier stage, a mixer stage and a variable-gain stage, as well as two filter stages. After the IF module is depicted, fabricated and measured, its dynamic ranges for both receiving and transmitting path are 31.5 dB, and its predicted noise figure (NF) of receiving path, including frontend, is 4.29dB. It is shown that the design IF module is suitable for E-band application.