Design and analysis of miniature planar four‐way equal power divider for 60 GHz wireless home network and 77 GHz automobile radars in 90 nm CMOS

Abstract

ABSTRACTA millimeter‐wave (MMW) miniature planar dual balun (i.e. single‐to‐dual‐differential four‐way equal power divider) in 90 nm CMOS technology is reported. The dual balun can be applied to a star mixer for converting the single RF (or LO) input signal to dual differential RF (or LO) signals, or a four‐way power amplifier (PA) for four‐way equal power dividing. In contrast to the traditional four‐way PA that uses three Wilkinson power dividers for four‐way equal power dividing, the proposed PA achieves smaller chip area, higher output power and higher power‐added‐efficiency The dual balun occupies a small chip area of 0.14 mm×0.18 mm (i.e. 0.0252 mm2) and achieves S11 smaller than −10 dB for frequencies of 50–110 GHz. For frequencies of 55–65 GHz, the dual balun achieves S21 of −7.6 to −7.9 dB, S31 of −7.9 to −9 dB, S41 of −7.5 to −7.9 dB, S51 of −7.8 to −8.9 dB, magnitude of amplitude imbalance (MAI) of 0.34–1.1 dB and phase difference (PD) of 179.22–180.78° for ports 2–3, and MAI of 0.3–1 dB and PD of 178.83–180.48° for ports 4–5. For frequencies of 75–85 GHz, the dual balun achieves S21 of −9.1 to −10.5 dB, S31 of −10.7 to −12.7 dB, S41 of −9.1 to −10.5 dB, S51 of −10.7 to −12.6 dB, MAI of 1.7–2.2 dB and PD of 179.42–180.59° for ports 2–3, and MAI of 1.6–2.1 dB and PD of 179.93–180.73° for ports 4–5. The state‐of‐the‐art results of the proposed dual balun indicate that it is suitable for 60 and 77 GHz communication systems. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 58:850–860, 2016