A highly integrated monolithic X-Ku band upconverter

The authors describe a monolithic upconverter with a high level of integration (87 components) operating in the X-Ku bands. It consists of a two-stage RF amplifier; a broadband, transformer-coupled, double-balanced Schottky diode mixer; and a two-stage LO (local oscillator) buffer amplifier. The chip measures only 96 mil*48 mil. The upconverter IC, packaged along with MMIC (monolithic microwave-integrated-circuit) amplifiers, has been tested at different LO frequencies between 8-15 GHz with a swept IF from 200 MHz to 1.5 GHz, and typically has 10 dB of conversion gain for upconverted output across the 8-16.5-GHz band.<
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