A Wideband Bi-Directional Active Mixer for 5G Millimeter-Wave Applications

This paper presents a millimeter-wave (mmW) bi-directional Gilbert-cell mixer with low conversion loss (CL) and local oscillating (LO) power in a 90-nm CMOS process. The proposed double-balanced mixer provides a wide 3-dB bandwidth from 28 to 43 GHz in transmit (Tx) mode and 24 to 43 GHz in receive (Rx) mode. The compact area is achieved by modifying Marchand balun with compensating capacitors and a band-pass matching network at LO and RF ports. With 3-dBm LO power, the measured peak Tx- and Rx-mode conversion gain (CG) are ∑3.9 and ∑2.3 dB under DC power consumption of 11.5 and 8.4 mW, respectively.