A ${K}$ -Band High-Gain and Low-Noise Folded CMOS Mixer Using Current-Reuse and Cross-Coupled Techniques

Yao Peng,Qijun Huang,Sheng Chang,Yinxia Zhu,Haomin Hou,Jin He,Hao Wang

doi:10.1109/access.2019.2941048

Yao Peng, Qijun Huang + Show 5 more

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https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2019.2941048

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Abstract

A high-gain and low-noise folded down-conversion mixer for K-band applications is presented in this paper. Benefited from the folded double-balanced architecture, the transconductance (gm) stage and the switch stage of the mixer can operate in-different bias conditions, providing a great freedom to optimize the two stages for noise reduction. By exploiting current-reuse and cross-coupled techniques, the conversion gain (CG) and noise figure (NF) of the mixer can be significantly improved. The proposed mixer has been designed and fabricated for verification in a 130-nm RF CMOS. Measured over the RF bandwidth from 23 to 25 GHz, the mixer achieves a maximum CG of 26.1 dB and a minimum NF of 7.7 dB under a local oscillator (LO) power of -3 dBm. The input 1-dB compression point (P1dB) is -17.8 dBm at RF frequency of 24 GHz. From 23 to 25 GHz, the LO-to-RF, LO-to-IF, and RF-to-LO isolations are better than 58 dB, 51 dB, and 43 dB, respectively. With a 1.5-V supply voltage, the mixer consumes an overall dc power of 16.8 mW. These measurement results clearly demonstrate that the proposed mixer has potential to be used in highly-integrated K-band CMOS radios.

Highlights

The increasing demands for wireless applications with high data rates at K band have received great attention, e.g., 22–29-GHz short-range automotive radar, 24-GHz industrial–scientific–medical (ISM) band, and 18–23-GHz point-to-point communications
Attributed to constantly shrinking dimensions of devices, CMOS technology becomes a great competitor of III-V technologies, such as GaAs, InP, and pHEMT, to implement the millimeter-wave integrated circuits with low cost, high integration, and mass production
Since the passive down-conversion mixers exhibit conversion loss degrading the overall receiver performances and require high local oscillator (LO) voltages causing more power dissipation, active mixers with high conversion gain (CG), low noise figure (NF), large linearity, high port-to-port isolation (ISO), and low power consumption are imminently demanded for K -band CMOS radars

Summary

Introduction

The increasing demands for wireless applications with high data rates at K band have received great attention, e.g., 22–29-GHz short-range automotive radar, 24-GHz industrial–scientific–medical (ISM) band, and 18–23-GHz point-to-point communications. INDEX TERMS K -band, high-gain, low-noise, CMOS, down-conversion mixer, folded architecture, current-reuse, cross-coupled.

Results

Conclusion