A W-Band Highly Linear SiGe BiCMOS Double-Balanced Active Up-Conversion Mixer Using Multi-Tanh Triplet Technique

This letter presents a W-band highly linear doublebalanced active up-conversion mixer implemented in a low-cost 200 GHz and f(T) and f(max) 0.18 mu m SiGe BiCMOS process. Linearization technique based on multi-tanh triplet principle is used to improve the linearity of the transconductanace stage. An integrated active frequency doubler and on-chip balun are used at LO port and RF port, respectively to facilitate on-wafer testing. The technical aspects of the mixer characterization are addressed. The up-conversion mixer achieves a single sideband (SSB) power conversion gain of 5.1 dB at 77 GHz and 3.8 dB at 80 GHz. The output-referred 1 dB compression point (OP(1 dB)) is -4.2 dBm and -5.8 dBm at 77 and 80 GHz, respectively. The active mixer, including the output buffers, draws 32.5 mA from a nominal 3.3 V supply. The chip area of the mixer is 820 mu m X 810 mu m (0.664 mm(2)). To the best of authors' knowledge, this is the first W- band active up-conversion mixer utilizing multi-tanh triplet technique that has demonstrated the highest measured and characterized operating frequency among all other silicon-based up-conversion mixers reported to date.