Planar Monolithic Schottky Varactor Diode Millimeter-Wave Frequency Multipliers

摘要

A critical component of the millimeter-wave superheterodyne receiver is the localoscillator (LO) which is used to pump the low-noise mixer. Frequency multipliers have been used for many years to produce LO power. Current technology uses the whisker-contacted Schottky varactor diode which is inherently very fragile, expensive to fabricate, difficult to optimize, and requires as many as three mechanical tuners. This report describes the design, fabrication, and evaluation of four planar frequency multipliers. The 'direct-replacement' design demonstrates how a discrete planar varactor can replace a whisker-contacted varactor in a waveguide-type 75/225 GHz tripler and yield comparable performance. The fully monolithic (MMIC) balanced-varactor 80/160 GHz doubler and balanced-varactor 80/240 GHz tripler designs illustrate that MMIC technology is practical throughout the millimeter-wave band. Finally, a high-power 31/94 GHz tripler design is presented. These MMIC multipliers are the first to operate over 100 GHz, use coplanar waveguide extensively, and use inductance cancellation to permit simultaneous tuning of the varactor at the pump, idler, and output frequencies.... Millimeter-wave, Varactor, Mount, Frequency multiplier, Frequency doubler, Frequency tripler, MMIC.