A Broadband Mixer Up to 110 GHz With I–Q Outputs

Author

Yihu Li ; Wang Ling Goh ; Yong-Zhong Xiong

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. & Electron. Eng., Nanyang Technol. Univ., Singapore, Singapore

Volume

5

Issue

2

fYear

2015

fDate

Mar-15

Firstpage

251

Lastpage

259

Abstract

An ultra-broadband mixer with I-Q outputs is proposed and analyzed in this paper. The mixer is composed of a distributed amplifier, a traveling wave power splitter and two active mixers where the input capacitors are absorbed in the artificial transmission lines. The orthogonal LO inputs are fed to the mixers via an on-chip Lange coupler. With the aid of loss compensation techniques, the proposed mixer can operate up to 110 GHz. An average conversion gain of 5.5 dB/14.5 dB is achieved with 1 dBm LO input power without/with the pre-distributed amplifier, respectively. 0.13- μm SiGe process is used to fabricate the proposed design. Including the testing pads, the total chip areas both without and with the pre-distributed amplifier are (1.2 ×1) mm² and (2 ×1) mm², respectively.

Keywords

Ge-Si alloys; distributed amplifiers; mixers (circuits); preamplifiers; semiconductor materials; I-Q outputs; LO input power; SiGe; SiGe process; active mixers; artificial transmission lines; average conversion gain; input capacitors; loss compensation techniques; on-chip Lange coupler; orthogonal LO inputs; predistributed amplifier; size 0.13 mum; testing pads; total chip areas; traveling wave power splitter; ultrabroadband mixer; Broadband communication; Capacitance; Couplers; Gain; Mixers; Propagation losses; Resistance; Conversion gain; SiGe; pre-distributed amplifier; ultra-broadband mixer;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Terahertz Science and Technology, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

2156-342X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TTHZ.2015.2394736

Filename

7038231