A 5–12 GHz double-balanced power mixer with differential transmission-line transformer in 0.18 μm CMOS

This paper proposes a fully integrated 5-12 GHz power mixer in tsmc^TM 1P6M 0.18 μm CMOS technology. The power mixer is used to replace the conventional mixer and power amplifier (PA). The circuit consists of an up-conversion Gilbertcell mixer and a wideband and low loss 1:4 Guanella-type differential transmission-line-transformer (DTLT). The power mixer is biased at deep class A/B under a 3.5-V supply voltage and dissipates total DC power consumption of 172 mW. The power mixer achieves a conversion gain of 19.5 ± 1.5 dB from 5 to 12 GHz, an OP1dB of 13.1 dBm with a 3-dB power bandwidth from 4 to 12 GHz, a saturation power Psat of 15 dBm with a 3-dB power bandwidth from 4 to 12 GHz. The drain efficiency is 10.3% at 11-dBm LO power. The chip size including pads is 0.96 mm × 1.57 mm.