Comparison of Mixer Characterization Using New Vector Characterization Techniques

This paper presents a novel method for characterizing RF mixers, yielding magnitude, phase, and group delay response of the conversion loss, as well a the input match and output match. This technique works for mixers which have reciprocal conversion loss and for which the image response can be filtered out. This technique is compared with a new vector corrected power technique, and with traditional power meter measurements. An error analysis on the new technique is presented for the first time.