A 24.25–30 GHz radio frequency up‐down converter with harmonic distortions rejection for 5G millimeter wave radio channel emulator applications

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper, a 24.25–30 GHz fully integrated radio frequency (RF) up‐down converter with harmonic distortions rejection for 5G millimeter wave radio channel emulator applications is proposed and implemented in a 0.1‐μm GaAs pseudomorphic high‐electron‐mobility transistor technology. The RF up‐down converter integrates a frequency doubling amplifier chain local oscillator, a harmonic suppression mixer, and three frequency selective filters for unwanted harmonics suppression. To prevent the unwanted harmonics from leaking into the RF band, a higher sideband and high‐intermediate frequency mixer core with harmonic suppression filters is proposed. With this method, the unwanted harmonics are well suppressed. To effectively reduce the chip area, a miniaturized Marchand Balun based on a folded structure is proposed. The measured results demonstrate good in‐band spectral purity with more than 70 dB suppression of unwanted harmonics. Benefit from the high‐side injection mixing scheme and harmonics suppression method, the presented up‐down converter achieves a dynamic power range of −100 to −5 dBm with a conversion loss of 10 dB. The implemented RF up‐down converter occupies only 0.9 × 2.7 mm2 in size, with a power consumption of 400 mW under 4‐V supply.