Low conversion loss Ka-band suspended stripline mixer with low LO power

Abstract

Design and implementation of a Ka-band low conversion loss suspended stripline mixer with low local oscillator (LO) power is presented in this paper. Suspended stripline technology with planar beam-lead Schottky barrier diodes has been employed for low loss mixer design. The mixer provides conversion loss of 5.8 ± 0.9 dB over 2 GHz instantaneous RF bandwidth with +6 dBm LO power at 35 GHz LO. The mixer also exhibits 1 GHz instantaneous LO bandwidth with 6.2 ± 1.2 dB conversion loss. LO to RF and LO to IF isolations for the mixer are greater than 25 dB and 45 dB respectively. The proposed mixer provides a low-cost high-performance solution for millimeterwave system design.