A 31∼61 GHz linear transconductance up-conversion mixer with 15 GHz IF-bandwidth

A novel 31-61 GHz up-conversion transconductance mixer is proposed, designed and manufactured in a 0.25 μm InP DHBT technology, which consists of a main and an auxiliary mixer. At large input power, the conversion gain compression of the main mixer is compensated by the gain expansion of the auxiliary mixer; consequently, the linearity of the combined two mixers is improved. The measured output referred 1-dB compression point, OP_1dB, is -2.2 dBm to -0.57 dBm in the frequency range, which to the authors' knowledge, is the best obtained among the up-conversion mixers published so far. Moreover, the mixer also demonstrates a broad IF bandwidth of 0~15 GHz, supporting up-conversion of high datarate baseband signals.