A 4–41 GHz Singly Balanced Distributed Mixer Using GaAs pHEMT Technology

A broadband singly balanced distributed mixer is developed using a 0.15-mum GaAs pHEMT foundry process. It is the first time that the charge-injection approach is applied to a distributed mixer. With the advantage of charge-injection, the mixer achieves a high conversion gain with low dc consumption. The fabricated distributed mixer with an integrated broadband transformer has a compact chip size of 2mmtimes1mm. Measurement results show that the mixer achieves a conversion gain of better than 3.5dB over a broadband frequency from 4-41GHz, with a relatively low dc power consumption of 100mW