A Low-Power W-Band SiGe-HBT Double-Balanced Up-Conversion Mixer With an Integrated Second-Order IF Low-Pass Filter

A low-power <tex-math notation="LaTeX">W</tex-math> -band (75–110 GHz) double-balanced up-conversion mixer using a 0.13 <tex-math notation="LaTeX">μ</tex-math> m SiGe:C BiCMOS technology with <tex-math notation="LaTeX">fT/fₘax=250/370~GHz</tex-math> is presented. The mixer includes on-chip transformer baluns at the LO and RF ports for on-wafer characterization. At 91.3 GHz, the active mixer achieves a single sideband (SSB) power conversion gain of 4.1 dB with a 3-dB RF bandwidth (BW) of 30 GHz from 78.1 to 108.3 GHz, covering almost the entire <tex-math notation="LaTeX">W</tex-math> -band. The linearity performance, characterized by <tex-math notation="LaTeX">OP1dB</tex-math> and <tex-math notation="LaTeX">Pₛₐₜ</tex-math> , is 0.6 and 1.8 dBm, respectively while consuming only 11 mW from a 1.8 V supply. Moreover, a second-order IF <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$LC$</tex-math> low-pass filter (LPF) with a cutoff frequency of 1.4 GHz is integrated to provide an additional spurious suppression of <tex-math notation="LaTeX">~</tex-math> 12 and <tex-math notation="LaTeX">~</tex-math> 19 dB at the second and third harmonic of the fundamental IF (i.e., 1.25 GHz). The overall chip area, including the IF LPF is 990 <tex-math notation="LaTeX">×</tex-math> 540 <tex-math notation="LaTeX">μ</tex-math> m (0.53 mm <tex-math notation="LaTeX">²</tex-math> ). To the best of authors' knowledge, the active up-conversion mixer achieves the lowest power consumption along with the highest <tex-math notation="LaTeX">OP1dB</tex-math> / <tex-math notation="LaTeX">Pₛₐₜ</tex-math> and 3-dB RF BW reported among all prior published <tex-math notation="LaTeX">W</tex-math> -band SiGe-HBT up-conversion mixers.