Novel Miniature and Broadband Millimeter-Wave Monolithic Star Mixers
Journal
IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques
Journal Volume
56
Journal Issue
4
Pages
793--802
Date Issued
2008-04
Author(s)
Abstract
In this paper, three monolithic star mixers using a new miniature dual balun are proposed. The first one is a double spiral transformer mixer, and the second one is a trifilar transformer mixer. Both of these are fabricated using a commercial GaAs pseudomorphic HEMT process. The third is a 3-D transformer mixer, which is fabricated using a commercial CMOS process. These mixers exhibit bandwidths over 2545 GHz (57%) with local oscillator isolations better than 20 dB. These star mixers are smaller than $(\lambda/6\times\lambda/6) $ for the mixer core area. Compared with traditional star mixers, these mixers demonstrate 80% size reduction, and achieve good performance with the smallest chip size among all star mixers using monolithic microwave integrated circuit processes. © 2006 IEEE.
Subjects
Balun; Diode mixer; Double-balanced mixer (DBM); Mixer; Monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC); Resistive mixer; Spiral transformer; Star mixer; Transformer
Type
journal article