volume | PIER Journals

2011-06-15

A Single-Balanced Quadruple Subharmonical Mixer with a Compact IF Extraction

Yi-Chang Lee,

Dr. Yi-Chang Lee

Department of Electrical Engineering

National Cheng-Kung University

Taiwan

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Yung-Hsiang Chang,

Dr. Yung-Hsiang Chang

Department of Electrical Engineering

National Cheng-Kung University

Taiwan

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Shih-Han Hung,

Dr. Shih-Han Hung

Department of Electrical Engineering

National Cheng-Kung University

Taiwan

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Wei-Chih Chien,

Dr. Wei-Chih Chien

Department of Electrical Engineering

National Cheng-Kung University

Taiwan

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Chun-Chi Su,

Dr. Chun-Chi Su

Department of Electrical Engineering

National Cheng-Kung University

Taiwan

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Chia-Chin Hung,

Dr. Chia-Chin Hung

Department of Electrical Engineering

National Cheng-Kung University

Taiwan

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Chih-Ming Lin,

Dr. Chih-Ming Lin

Department of Electrical Engineering

National Cheng-Kung University

Taiwan

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Yeong-Her Wang

Prof. Yeong-Her Wang

Institute of Microelectronics, Department of Electrical Engineering

National Cheng-Kung University

Taiwan, ROC

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Progress In Electromagnetics Research Letters, Vol. 24, 159-167, 2011

doi:10.2528/PIERL11041601

Abstract

A novel 21-35 GHz single-balanced quadruple subharmonic monolithic passive mixer is fabricated using the 0.15 μm GaAs pHEMT process. This mixer consists of a local oscillation (LO) spiral balun and a radio frequency (RF) band pass filter which has an intermediate frequency (IF) extracted feature utilizing a pair of anti-parallel Schottky barrier diode to achieve quadruple subharmonic mixing mechanism. The RF band pass filter formed with an interdigital coupler and a low-pass network is used to reduce the chip dimension while operating at a low frequency band and to improve the isolation between the RF and IF ports with a broadband operation. From the measured results, the mixer exhibits 11.3-15.1 dB conversion loss, 28.8 dB-high RF-to-IF isolation, 40 dB-high LO-to-RF isolation, 60 dB-high 3LO-to-RF isolation over a 21-35 GHz RF bandwidth, and an input 1 dB compression power of 4 dBm. The compact IF extraction circuit supports an IF frequency ranging from DC to 3.1 GHz. The core chip size is only 0.67 × 0.75 mm².

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Yi-Chang Lee, Yung-Hsiang Chang, Shih-Han Hung, Wei-Chih Chien, Chun-Chi Su, Chia-Chin Hung, Chih-Ming Lin, and Yeong-Her Wang, "A Single-Balanced Quadruple Subharmonical Mixer with a Compact IF Extraction," Progress In Electromagnetics Research Letters, Vol. 24, 159-167, 2011.
doi:10.2528/PIERL11041601

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