Miniaturized broadband up-converter MMIC

The design and performance of a miniaturized broadband up-converter MMIC is presented. The circuit is designed to operate as an harmonic FET mixer with an output frequency ranging from 40 to 160 GHz. With an LO power of +12 dBm, the circuit achieves a measured conversion loss of about 10 dB over the 40-110 GHz range, with 20-dB intrinsic LO suppression, +2 to +5-dBm input referred power at 1-dB compression (IP1dB), and +10 dBm input referred third order intercept point (IIP3). To the author´s knowledge, these results demonstrate the first operation of this circuit topology as a broadband harmonic mixer for up-conversion applications. The MMIC is realized in a commercially available GaAs PHEMT technology with 100 nm gate-length and its topology is convenient for integration into multifunctional MMICs from Ka- to D-band.