A single-ended wideband downconversion Gilbert micromixer is demonstrated in this paper using 0.35-mum SiGe BiCMOS technology. A transimpedance amplifier with resistive feedback is utilized in the IF stage while a broadband Marchand balun is employed to generate wideband differential local oscillator signals. The planar Marchand balun topology employed in this paper can generate truly balanced signals even in the presence of the lossy low-resistivity (~10 Omegamiddotcm) silicon substrate. A systematic approach to measure the frequency response of each individual stage in a Gilbert mixer is developed in this paper. This single-ended wideband mixer has the conversion gain of 15 dB, IP1dB of -19 dBm, IIP3 of -7 dBm, and the noise figure of 13 dB. The mixer works from 3.5 to 14.5 GHz

/pdf/monolithic-broadband-gilbert-micromixer-with-an-integrated-19jrgz0qd2.pdf

Monolithic Broadband Gilbert Micromixer With an Integrated Marchand Balun Using Standard Silicon IC Process

A 2-11-GHz high linearity CMOS down-conversion mixer with wideband active baluns using 0.18-mum CMOS technology is demonstrated in this paper. The mixer employs a folded cascode Gilbert cell topology and on-chip broadband active baluns. The folded cascode approach is adopted to increase the output swing, and the linearity is enhanced by a harmonic distortion canceling technique derived from the harmonic balance analysis. The proposed configuration shows the highest IIP3 and IP1 dB, and exhibits more compact size than most published studies. A broadband active balun is used to generate wideband differential signals, together with the derivation of a closed-form expression for the phase imbalance. This single-ended wideband mixer has the conversion gain of 6.9plusmn1.5 dB, input 1-dB compression point (IP1 dB) of - 3.5 dBm, single-sideband noise figure of 15.5 dB, and third-order input intercept point (IIP3) of 6.5 dBm under the power consumption of 25.7 mW from a 1.8-V power supply. The chip area is 0.85 x 0.57 mm2.

/pdf/an-ultra-wideband-high-linearity-cmos-mixer-with-new-2xygbtz2jr.pdf

An Ultra-Wideband High-Linearity CMOS Mixer With New Wideband Active Baluns

New ultra-wideband high-order Marchand baluns with one microstrip unbalanced port and two microstrip balanced ports are proposed in this paper. The proposed Marchand baluns are synthesized based on an -plane high-pass prototype using the Richards' transformation. The responses of the synthesized high-order Marchand baluns are exactly predicted at all real frequencies. All circuit elements are commensurate, which means the electrical lengths of all transmission line elements are a quarter-wavelength long at the center frequency. Two fifth-order Marchand baluns with reflection coefficients of 20.53 and 21.71 dB corresponding to 131% and 152% bandwidth, respectively, are synthesized and realized using the combinations of microstrip lines, slotlines, and coplanar striplines. Simulated and measured results are presented.

https://ir.nctu.edu.tw:443/bitstream/11536/26072/1/000286109400009.pdf

Exact Synthesis and Implementation of New High-Order Wideband Marchand Baluns

A K-band sub-harmonically pumped resistive mixer is demonstrated using standard 0.13 mum CMOS technology. A miniature Marchand Balun is integrated with the resistive mixer to generate equal amplitude and out-of-phase signals for mixer's local oscillation (LO) port directly on the lossy silicon substrate. The sub-harmonic resistive mixer with the integrated Marchand balun has conversion loss of 11-12 dB at fIF = 100 MHz and PLO = 7 dBm for RF frequencies from 18 to 26 GHz. The LO-RF and LO-IF isolations are approximately 30 and 33 dB, respectively.

https://ir.nctu.edu.tw:443/bitstream/11536/9883/1/000252256600014.pdf

K-Band CMOS Sub-Harmonic Resistive Mixer With a Miniature Marchand Balun on Lossy Silicon Substrate

This work presents a compact CMOS Marchand balun design, which consists of the meandered two-conductor edge-coupled complementary-conducting-strip coupled-line (CCS CL). The CCS CL, which is fully compatible with the standard CMOS process, provides various structural parameters to synthesize the desired coupling coefficient for Marchand balun realization. The prototype, which is fabricated by the standard 0.18-µm 1P6M CMOS technology, reveals circuit size of 240.0 µm × 240.0 µm (without contact pads). The measured results, which are collected based on 50-Ω system, demonstrate excellent agreements with those of the simulations. The input return loss is less than −15.0 dB from 21.6 GHz to 33.1 GHz. The measured insertion losses between input and two output ports (S 21 and S 31 ) are 5.90 dB and 4.38 dB at 23.6 GHz, respectively. The phase difference between two output ports is 180° ± 10° from 15.5 GHz to 40.0 GHz.

A compact CMOS Marchand balun incorporating meandered multilayer edge-coupled transmission lines

This paper demonstrates a low-voltage wideband downconverter along with an integrated transformer RF balun using the 2-mum GalnP/GaAs HBT technology. This transformer is a symmetric type and plays a role as a single-to-differential balun. Without the parasitics between the transformer and the substrate, the transformer can work at higher frequencies. This transformer downconverter operates from 1.5 GHz to 14 GHz with around 20-dB conversion gain and 1.8-GHz IF 3-dB bandwidth. The frequency range of the mixing operation is wide and covers the digital video broadcasting via satellite (DVB-S) bands. This mixer hence is useful for DVB-S applications. Since there is no dc voltage drop on the transformer, the voltage supply of the mixer core is only 2.4 V and the current consumption is approximately 8.6 mA. The chip size of the entire mixer is 1 mm times 1 mm while the transformer occupies the estate of 150 mum times 150 mum.

Low-Voltage GaInP/GaAs HBT Wideband Gilbert Downconverter Using Transformer RF Balun

A single-ended wideband downconversion Gilbert micromixer is demonstrated in this paper using 0.35-mum SiGe BiCMOS technology. Because of the wideband matching property of the micromixer, it can perform broad frequency translation. The TIA is utilized in the IF stage while a broadband Marchand balun is employed not only to generate differential LO signals but also to reserve the wideband operation of the mixer. This single-ended wideband mixer has the conversion gain of 15 dB, IP1dB of -17 dBm, and IIP3 of -6.5 dBm and works from 3.5 to 14.5 GHz. The input return loss is below -14 dB and the chip size is 1times1 mm2

https://ir.nctu.edu.tw:443/bitstream/11536/17297/1/000244379003061.pdf

Broadband Gilbert Micromixer With an LO Marchand Balun and a TIA Output Buffer

A wideband downconversion mixer is demonstrated using 0.35-mum SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) technology. A micromixer topology is implemented in the RF port while a differential type shunt-shunt feedback amplifier and a differential-to-single CE-CC output buffer are used in the IF stage. The frequency response analysis and systematic measurement approach for a wideband Gilbert mixer are proposed in this paper for each individual stage of local frequency (LO), radio frequency (RF), and intermediate frequency (IF). The differential LO signals are generated by several off-chip 180 degree hybrids to cover more than 8:1 bandwidth. The downconversion Gilbert mixer achieves the conversion gain of 6 dB, IP1 dB of -17.5 dBm, and IIP3 of -7 dBm. The power consumption is 37.5 mW at 3.3 V supply voltage.

Chih-Kai Wu

Papers

Monolithic Broadband Gilbert Micromixer With an Integrated Marchand Balun Using Standard Silicon IC Process

Low-Voltage GaInP/GaAs HBT Wideband Gilbert Downconverter Using Transformer RF Balun

Broadband Gilbert Micromixer With an LO Marchand Balun and a TIA Output Buffer

A Wideband SiGe HBT Gilbert Micromixer With Differential-to-Single CE-CC Output Stage