A 9-21 GHz MINIATURE MONOLITHIC IMAGE REJECT MIXER IN 0.18-μm CMOS TECHNOLOGY

Abstract

A compact 9-21 GHz monolithic image reject mixer (IRM) with a chip dimension of 0.9 × 0.74 mm 2 has been designed and fabricated using a standard 0.18 µm CMOS technology. The compact configuration is composed of a 90 • coupler for local oscillator (LO) and two doubly balanced ring mixers for mixing core. Particularly, a radio frequency (RF) dual balun with advanced intermediate frequency (IF) extraction technique can not only eliminate the use of power divider in IRM design, and simultaneously provide balanced signals for ring mixing, but also obtain high side band suppression without any additional IF low-pass filter. Moreover, the entire passive circuits are constructed by utilizing broad side coupling structure to achieve high-level integration further. From the measured results, the IRM exhibits a 19.4-22.4 dB conversion loss, a maximum image rejection ratio (IRR) of 34 dB, all port-to-port isolations better than 28 dB over RF frequency range of 9 to 21 GHz, and an input 1 dB compression power of 14 dBm.

A 20-31 GHz HIGH IMAGE REJECTION RATIO SUBHARMONIC MIXER

“…The best IRR for the phase compensated at 20 • is 29 dBc at 24.5 GHz. Table 1 summarizes the comparative results for the proposed structure with other reported IRMs [7][8][9][10][14][15][16]. The proposed CMOS SHIRM presents some significant advantages over previously reported designs, including its operating bandwidth of 11 GHz across the K-band, IRR of 29 dB, and compact chip size.…”

“…Furthermore, Hartley architecture is rather sensitive to I/Q mismatches subsequently on the degradation of image rejection ratio (IRR). The IRM utilizing a new RF dual balun to provide balanced RF signals and simultaneously simplified IF extraction to enhance RF/LO-to-IF isolation levels without additional IF filters was proposed [14]. However, they used the off-chip component of the IF quadrature hybrid to connect the IF I/Q ports, which lowered the integration level.…”

New Non-Linear Approach for the Evaluation of the Linearity of High Gain Harmonic Self Oscillating Mixers

“…In order to analyze the linearity of the HSOM working as a mixer, the two figures of merit which are commonly used to characterize conventional amplifiers [8-10, 26, 27], and mixers [13,15,17,28], namely, the 1 dB compression point and the third order interception point (IP3), will be calculated. In addition, an in-depth study of the influence of the harmonic content and the operating regime of the circuit on the linearity of the mixing operation will be performed.…”

“…As in any amplifier [8][9][10], mixer [11][12][13][14][15][16][17], or active antenna with mixing capabilities [18], noise behavior [11,12] and IF signal distortion [13,18] are key factors that must be rigorously analyzed and minimized. In this work, it will be shown that the figures of merit which are traditionally used to analyze the linearity of conventional mixers cannot be directly applied to an autonomous circuit like the HSOM, because of the influence of the input RF signal power on the parameters of the self-oscillating signal.…”

Differential Transformer Using Bonder-Wires and Patterns on a Printed Circuit Board for Rf Circuit Applications

“…Recently most RFICs have been designed using a CMOS process to reduce overall cost [9][10][11][12][13][14]. However, gain reduction problems induced by the bonder-wires at the ground PAD have arisen, because, in general, no through substrate via process is provided in the CMOS process [15].…”