A double balanced 81–86GHz EBAND active down conversion mixer in SiGe technology

An RF to IF down-conversion mixer for the upper 81-86GHz E-BAND frequency range was designed and fabricated in IBM 0.12μm SiGe technology. The Mixer comprises of a double balanced Gilbert-cell in which the RF signal is driven through a marchand balun into the common base amplifying mixer stage. The mixer exhibits conversion gain of 7dB, SSB noise figure of 12dB and input compression I1dBCP of -10dBm. The low noise figure and high conversion gain of the mixer enables the addition of a highly linear analog controlled attenuator between the mixer and LNA to further improve the linearity of the receiver chain without degrading the noise performance. The mixer area is 0.4mm2 and it consumes 110mW from a 2.7V power supply.