DC magnetic field modulated doubly balanced monolithic mixer using magnetic thin film baluns

Abstract

A novel DC Magnetic Field modulated doubly balanced monolithic mixer consisting of NiFe-SiOx magnetic thin film spiral transformer-baluns is presented first time. The -3dB bandwidth of the mixer from original L/S-band (1.3-3GHz) was modulated to L/C-band (1.4-5.5GHz) while a DC magnetic field was applied. Besides, the conversion loss of the mixer was improved by 1dB decreasion at the same time. The fabrication process of the mixer was fully compatible with standard monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) process.