A fully integrated Ku-band down-converter front-end for DBS receivers

A fully integrated Ku-band down-converter front-end for digital broadcast satellite (DBS) receiver in a 0.18 µm SiGe BiCMOS technology is presented. To meet the specifications in different areas, the circuit can cover a wide RF range (10.7–13.45 GHz) with four LO frequencies, and down convert the RF signal to L-Band (950–2150 MHz). Compared with previous works, the presented down-converter using a low cost technology to achieve a low noise figure (< 6 dB), high gain (> 51 dB), and high linearity (OP
1dB
> 5.5 dBm) under low power consumption (32 mA; 135 mW) with an excellent gain flatness (±1 dB) and a very small chip area (0.6 mm
²
). This is also the first report of the DBS down-converter covering four different LO frequencies, to the best of our knowledge.