D-Band Cascode Up conversion Mixer Utilizing Double Mixing Technique for Enhanced Linearity and Output Power in 130-nm SiGe Process

Journal article, 2025

This article presents a D-band cascode balanced upconversion mixer in a 130-nm SiGe process. The proposed mixeremploys a double mixing technique in its cascode configuration,where the local oscillator (LO) and intermediate frequency (IF)signals are applied at the base of the common-emitter (CE)configured transistor, and the common-base (CB) configuredtransistor remixes the fLO and fIF signals at the collector of theCE transistor, generating additional RF signal power and therebyenhancing the overall mixing process. This up conversion mixerachieves a saturation output power of 5.9 dBm with a dc powerconsumption of only 69 mW. The measured output referred1-dB compression point (OP1 dB) is 4.8 dBm. The measured peakconversion gain (CG) of the mixer is 9.8 dB at 139 GHz, with3-dB bandwidth exceeding 30 GHz for dierent LO/IF powers.The LO-RF isolation is below 􀀀40 dB across the 120–170-GHzrange. The chip size is 620  360 m2. This mixer exhibitssuperior performance concerning output power and linearity aswell as core chip area.