Design of a Low-Noise Integrated Subharmonic Mixer at 183 GHz Using European Schottky Diode Technology

This paper describes the design of a broadband fixed-tuned 183 GHz sub-harmonically pumped mixer featuring an anti-parallel pair of planar Schottky diodes monolithically integrated on a 50 m-thick GaAs substrate. The circuit is about 4 mm long, 0.28 mm wide and is mounted in a waveguide block that includes waveguide matching elements at the Local Oscillator (LO) and RF frequencies. The mixer is expected to work efficiently in the band 160-190 GHz using only 2 mW of LO pump power, with a Double Side Band (DSB) conversion gain greater than-5.5 dB. Best performances obtained in simulations are a minimum DSB gain of-5.1 dB at 183 GHz. The circuit will be fabricated using the standard BES process of United Monolithic Semiconductors (UMS).