A Complementary Current-Mirror-Based Bulk-Driven Down-Conversion Mixer for Wideband Applications

Abstract

A novel high conversion gain, low power, current-mirror-based bulk-driven mixer implemented in a 0.18 \(\upmu \hbox {m}\) CMOS technology is presented in this paper. The architecture of the proposed mixer consists of the four complementary CMOS current-mirrors that are connected to form a double-balanced bulk-driven down-conversion mixer. The radio frequency (RF) signals are applied to the input terminals of the current-mirrors, and the local oscillator signals are applied directly to the bulk terminals of the current-mirrors’ output transistors, while the intermediate frequency (IF) signals are from the output terminals of the current-mirrors. With the input RF frequency range from 0.5 to 6.0 GHz and the fixed IF frequency of 100 MHz, the simulation results show that the proposed mixer achieves a power conversion gain of 14.0–15.1 dB, an input third-order intercept point of − 3.8 to − 3.0 dBm, and a double-sideband noise figure of 12.1–13.4 dB. A good port-to-port isolation is also achieved across the entire frequency band. The mixer has a compact chip area of 0.25 mm\(^{2}\) without the inductance passive components, and the mixer core dissipates only 3.1 mW under a supply voltage of 1.0 V.