An Ultra-Broadband Subharmonic Mixer With Distributed Amplifier Using 90-nm CMOS Technology

This paper presents a Ka- to F-band ultra-broadband subharmonic mixer (SHM) using the standard 90-nm CMOS process. The proposed SHM employs a distributed amplifier and antiparallel diode pair configuration to realize wide operation bandwidth from 33 to 103 GHz, low conversion loss from 0.52 to 3.35 dB, good local oscillation (LO)-to-RF isolation greater than 27.7 dB, and high 2LO-to-RF isolation better than 60 dB with a miniature chip dimension of 0.49 mm² at a 10-dBm LO power level. Using the distributed amplifier technique, the proposed SHM offers significant advantages, such as broad operation bandwidth, good flatness, high port-to-port isolation, and good conversion loss.