30–40-GHz Drain-Pumped Passive-Mixer MMIC Fabricated on VLSI SOI CMOS Technology

TLDR

The paper proposes a passive down‑mixer suitable for short‑channel FET technologies. The monolithic microwave integrated circuit is fabricated in 90‑nm silicon‑on‑insulator CMOS, with all impedance matching, bias, and filter elements integrated on a 0.5 mm × 0.47 mm chip that operates from 30 to 40 GHz. Measured at 35 GHz with 7.5 dBm LO, the mixer achieves 4.6 dB conversion loss, 7.9 dB SSB NF, –6 dBm 1‑dB compression, and 2 dBm IIP3; at 0 dBm LO it shows 6.3 dB loss and 9.7 dB NF, making it an excellent low‑power millimeter‑wave CMOS mixer with conversion loss lower than leading III/V passive MMICs.

Abstract

In this paper, a passive down mixer is proposed, which is well suited for short-channel field-effect transistor technologies. The authors believe that this is the first drain-pumped transconductance mixer that requires no dc supply power. The monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) is fabricated using digital 90-nm silicon-on-insulator CMOS technology. All impedance matching, bias, and filter elements are implemented on the chip, which has a compact size of 0.5 mm/spl times/0.47 mm. The circuit covers a radio frequency range from 30 to 40 GHz. At a RF frequency of 35 GHz, an intermediate frequency of 2.5 GHz and a local-oscillator (LO) power of 7.5 dBm, a conversion loss of 4.6 dB, a single-sideband (SSB) noise figure (NF) of 7.9 dB, an 1-dB input compression point of -6 dBm, and a third-order intercept point at the input of 2 dBm were measured. At lower LO power of 0 dBm, a conversion loss of 6.3 dBm and an SSB NF of 9.7 dB were measured, making the mixer an excellent candidate for low power-consuming wireless local-area networks. All results include the pad parasitics. To the knowledge of the authors, this is the first CMOS mixer operating at millimeter-wave frequencies. The achieved conversion loss is even lower than for passive MMIC mixers using leading edge III/V technologies, showing the excellent suitability of digital CMOS technology for analog circuits at millimeter-wave frequencies.