A fully integrated 35 GHz MMIC receiver with on-chip LO

Abstract

A monolithic-microwave-integrated-circuit (MMIC) receiver chip containing a low-noise amplifier (LNA), an active mixer, an IF amplifier, a local oscillator, and a buffer amplifier is described. The only external component required is the resonator. This feature was incorporated to accommodate both dielectric-resonator oscillator (DRO) and voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) implementation. Chip size is 54 mils*80 mils (1.35mm *2 mm). The MMIC chip exhibits a conversion gain of 17 +or-2 dB across the 33- to 37-GHz band with a peak gain of 19 dB at 34 GHz. IF bandwidth extends from 100 MHz to over 2 GHz and the noise figure (DSB) is 9 dB. When assembled with a varactor, the local oscillator has a tuning bandwidth of over 4 GHz. The entire chip draws 55 mA from a single +8-V supply.<>