A sub-harmonic E-band IRM/SSB realized on a low cost PHEMT process

E-band spectrum at 71-76GHz and 81-86GHz provides the opportunity for the implementation of very high data-rate wireless links. However, component availability and price has held back the development and adoption of E-band radio links. This paper describes a sub-harmonic E-band Image Reject Mixer (IRM) and Single-SideBand (SSB) upconverter MMIC realized on a low-cost PHEMT process. The LO input to the IRM/SSB is at half the mixing frequency thereby simplifying the development of E-band transceivers. The measured conversion loss is 11dB in upconvert mode and 12dB in downconvert mode with an image rejection (unwanted sideband suppression) of 15dB. The required LO drive level is +14dBm.