A Q-band monolithic balanced resistive HEMT mixer usingCPW/slot-line balun

摘要

A Q-band balanced resistive high-electron-mobilitytransistor (HEMT) mixer has been developed for high-level integration ofmillimeter-wave receivers. The mixer consists of two AlGaAs/GaAs HEMTs,a CPW/slot-line LO (local oscillator) balun, and an active IF balun.This mixer can be easily integrated with the RF, LO, and IF HEMTamplifiers on one chip because it uses the HEMT as the mixing device.This mixer does not require backside and via-hole processes since it isrealized with CPW (coplanar waveguide) circuitry. This unique featureincreases the circuit yield and shortens the processing time. The mixerdownconverts the 42-46 GHz RF to a 2.3-3.2 GHz IF. The conversion lossis less than 8 dB over the entire RF frequency range with a LO drive of14 dBm. The minimum conversion loss is 4 dB from a RF at 43.0 GHz and aLO at 40.25 GHz. The Q-band mixer also achieves a 10.3 dBmoutput third-order intermodulation intercept point and a 1.5 dBm output1 dB compression point