A Low-Power W-Band SiGe-HBT Double-Balanced Up-Conversion Mixer With an Integrated Second-Order IF Low-Pass Filter

A low-power
$W$
-band (75–110 GHz) double-balanced up-conversion mixer using a
$0.13 \, \mu \text{m}$
SiGe:C BiCMOS technology with
$f_{\mathrm {T}}/f_{\mathrm {max}}=250/370 \mathrm {GHz}$
is presented. The mixer includes ON-chip transformer baluns at the LO and RF ports for on-wafer characterization. At 91.3 GHz, the active mixer achieves a single sideband (SSB) power conversion gain of 4.1 dB with a 3-dB RF bandwidth (BW) of 30 GHz from 78.1 to 108.3 GHz, covering almost the entire
$W$
-band. The linearity performance, characterized by
$\mathrm {OP}_{1\mathrm {dB}}$
and
$P_{\mathrm {sat}}$
, is 0.6 and 1.8 dBm, respectively while consuming only 11 mW from a 1.8 V supply. Moreover, a second-order IF
$LC$
low-pass filter (LPF) with a cutoff frequency of 1.4 GHz is integrated to provide an additional spurious suppression of
$\sim $
12 and
$\sim $
19 dB at the second and third harmonic of the fundamental IF (i.e., 1.25 GHz). The overall chip area, including the IF LPF is
$990 \times 540\,\,\mu \text{m}$
(0.53 mm2). To the best of authors’ knowledge, the active up-conversion mixer achieves the lowest power consumption along with the highest
$\mathrm {OP}_{1\mathrm {dB}}/P_{\mathrm {sat}}$
and 3-dB RF BW reported among all prior published
$W$
-band SiGe-HBT up-conversion mixers.