A low cost compact subharmonically pumped self oscillating mixer for MMIC applications

A low cost W-Band MMIC pHEMT subharmonically pumped self oscillating mixer has been designed and characterised. The mixer uses a single device to achieve mixing and doubling simultaneously. The mixer uses the enhanced second harmonic of this oscillation to mix with the RF. A novel feedback arrangement is also described. The feedback enables oscillation at half the LO frequency and also ensures a matchable RF input impedance. Owing to the reduced device count the mixer has a lower DC power consumption, is compact and reliable.