A dual-gate 60GHz direct up-conversion mixer with active IF balun in 65nm CMOS

This paper presents a low-power balanced dual-gate direct up-converter for the unlicensed 60 GHz band. To the author's knowledge, the proposed architecture has never been used for a CMOS up-converter working in this band before. The maximum conversion gain achieved by the fabricated test circuit for P
_LO
= 6 dBm, f
_LO
= 62 GHz and f
_IF
= 1 GHz is-2.4dB. Furthermore, a novel IF buffer topology with integrated broadband active balun has been proposed. It allows to test the mixer circuit using either a single-ended or differential IF signal. Future work will include the redesign of the RF buffer's matching networks as well as the direct connection of an on-chip differential VCO. These measures are expected to improve conversion gain and LO-to-IF isolation and lead to a better symmetry between upper and lower sidebands.