A novel 30–90 GHz singly balanced mixer with broadband LO/IF

Abstract

A novel mixer topology by using gate and drain pumped with combining drain terminals of nMOS devices is proposed to enhance LO/IF operation bandwidth in 90-nm CMOS. With 0.6 mW of dc power, this mixer achieves peak conversion gains (CGs)-6.2 dB,-6.1 dB,-8.6 dB, and-7.2 dB at LO frequencies of 30, 50, 60, and 90 GHz, respectively. At LO power 2.3 dBm and LO frequency of 30 GHz, the IF 3-dB bandwidth is 26 GHz. When LO power is 4.2 dBm at LO frequency of 90 GHz, the mixer has IF 3-dB bandwidth of 16 GHz. The IP1dB is at least 2 dBm from 30 to 90 GHz. The chip occupies 0.389 mm2. Comparison with other published works, this mixer demonstrates extremely wide bandwidth LO/IF for astronomy application.