Design and implementation of a W-band high-performance double-balanced active up-conversion mixer in 90 nm CMOS technology

Abstract

A 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 current injection for power consumption reduction and dual negative resistance compensation for conversion gain (CG) enhancement, a Marchand balun for converting the single local oscillator (LO) input signal to differential signal, and another Marchand balun for converting the differential RF output signal to single signal. The mixer consumes 13.6 mW and achieves intermediate frequency-port input reflection coefficient (S11) of 11.4 ∼ 11.44 dB for frequencies lower than 1 GHz and LO-port input reflection coefficient (S22) of 12.2 ∼ 28.7 dB for frequencies 75 ∼ 90 GHz. For RF frequencies of 77 ∼ 81 GHz, the mixer achieves CG of 0.6 ∼ 2.1 dB and LO-RF isolation of 35.9 dB, the best CG and isolation results ever reported for a W-band CMOS/BiCMOS mixer with power consumption lower than 15 mW. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 56:, 2014