An integrated 240 GHz differential frequency sixtupler in SiGe BiCMOS technology

Abstract

An integrated frequency sixtupler in SiGe BiCMOS technology is presented. It is composed of a nonlinear differential amplifier used as a frequency tripler followed by a Gilbert mixer used as a frequency doubler. The 3 dB bandwidth of the circuit is 15GHz in between 222 - 237GHz range with peak output power of -4 dBm for 0dBm input power. The suppression of the 120GHz feed through signal at the mixer output is better than 14 dB while the 5 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">th</sup> and the 7 <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">th</sup> harmonics are suppressed by more than 18 dB. The circuit consumes 900mW from a 4.7V supply. It is preceded by a differential amplifier functioning as an active balun to generate differential signals for the tripler.