A 7.3 mWW‐band double‐balanced up‐conversion mixer with 7.3 dB conversion gain and 65.5 dB LO‐RF isolation in 90 nm CMOS technology

Abstract

ABSTRACTA W‐band double‐balanced mixer for direct up‐conversion using standard 90 nm CMOS technology is reported. The mixer comprises an enhanced double‐balanced Gilbert cell with PMOS negative resistance compensation for conversion gain (CG) enhancement and current injection for power consumption reduction and linearity improvement, a Marchand balun for converting the single local oscillator (LO) input signal to differential signal, another Marchand balun for converting the differential RF output signal to single signal, and an output buffer amplifier for loading effect reduction and CG enhancement. The mixer consumes low power of 7.3 mW and achieves intermediate frequency‐port input reflection coefficient (S11) smaller than −8.8 dB for frequencies lower than 3 GHz, and LO‐port input reflection coefficient (S22) of −8.8∼ −23.9 dB and RF‐port input reflection coefficient (S33) of −11.2 to −22.4 dB for frequencies of 70–90 GHz. For RF frequencies of 77–81 GHz, the mixer achieves CG of 5.2–7.3 dB and LO‐RF isolation of 62.3–65.5 dB, the best CG and isolation results ever reported for a W‐band CMOS/BiCMOS up‐conversion mixer. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 57:879–886, 2015