Millimeter-Wave Thin-Film Downconverter

A 60-GHs hyhrid integrated downconverter intended for use in a mitlimeter-wave radio relay experiment has heen designed and tested. The converter consists of a strip transmission line circuit and two beam-leaded Schottky-barrier diodes which are pumped at a subharmonic of the convectional Iocal oscillator frequency. The conversion loss of the circuit is 6.3 dB and the total single-sideband noise figure, including the noise contribution from the IF amplifier, is 9.1 dB. The circuit looks attractive for millimeter-wave communication systems application up to 100 GHz.