High-gain low-noise Ku-band mixer with inverting transconductance technique

In this study, the authors present a high-gain, low-noise Ku-band down conversion mixer in 0.18 μm complimentary metal oxide semiconductor technology. An inverting transconductance technique is adopted to obtain a high conversion gain, which uses both inverting and current bleeding effects. The noise performance is improved by using a switched biasing technique. Current bleeding and inductor bridging techniques allow the simultaneous achievement of low noise and high conversion gain. The proposed mixer offers a measured conversion gain from 10.1 to 13.6 dB and a noise figure from 8.6 to 11.2 dB over 11 to 20 GHz and a third order input intercept point of -5 dBm at 16 GHz while consuming 8.3 mW from a 1.8 V supply voltage. The chip size, including test pads, is 0.77 × 0.75 mm².