A highly linear single balanced mixer based on heterojunction interband tunneling diode

In this paper a compact and highly linear MMIC single balanced mixer based on heterojunction interband tunnel diode (HITD) technology working at 1.8 GHz, is described. The prototype consisted of a pair of HITDs biased at zero volts and a lumped element directional coupler with arbitrary impedance terminations. The salient feature of the mixer is the linearity due to the quasi square law DC characteristics exhibited by the device around zero voltage. The design techniques along with a detailed experimental validation are provided. The prototype exhibited an IIP3 power level of 17 dBm and a 1 dB compression point of 7.5 dBm.

[1]  N. El-Zein,et al.  Modeling and investigation of instabilities in heterojunction interband tunnel diodes for microwave applications , 2001, 2001 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Sympsoium Digest (Cat. No.01CH37157).

[2]  Ran-Hong Yan,et al.  5 GHz CMOS radio transceiver front-end chipset , 2000, 2000 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference. Digest of Technical Papers (Cat. No.00CH37056).

[3]  A.A. Abidi,et al.  Power-conscious design of wireless circuits and systems , 2000, Proceedings of the IEEE.

[4]  Stephen A. Maas,et al.  Nonlinear microwave circuits , 1988 .

[5]  E. Main,et al.  Effects of offsets on bipolar integrated circuit mixer even order distortion terms , 2000, IMS 2000.

[6]  D. P. Steenson,et al.  Investigation of subharmonic mixer based on a quantum barrier device , 2000 .

[7]  G. I. Haddad,et al.  Nonlinear models for the intermodulation analysis of FET mixers , 1995 .

[8]  S. Iezekiel,et al.  A balanced self-oscillating mixer , 2000, IEEE Microwave and Guided Wave Letters.

[9]  T. Ohira,et al.  An MMIC local oscillator for 16-QAM digital microwave radio systems , 1995 .

[10]  M. Deshpande,et al.  DC and RF characterization of different heterojunction interband tunneling diodes , 2000, Conference Proceedings. 2000 International Conference on Indium Phosphide and Related Materials (Cat. No.00CH37107).

[11]  S. A. Maas.  How to model intermodulation distortion , 1991, 1991 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium Digest.

[12]  R. W. Vogel,et al.  Analysis and design of lumped- and lumped-distributed-element directional couplers for MIC and MMIC applications , 1992 .

[13]  R. H. Walden,et al.  Ka/Q-band doubly balanced MMIC mixers with low LO power , 2000 .

[14]  B. Gilbert,et al.  The MICROMIXER: a highly linear variant of the Gilbert mixer using a bisymmetric Class-AB input stage , 1997, IEEE J. Solid State Circuits.

[15]  F. Sabouri-S,et al.  A single-chip GaAs MMIC image-rejection front-end for digital European cordless telecommunications , 2000 .

[16]  A. Cidronali,et al.  A compact MMIC 90/spl deg/ coupler for ISM applications , 1997, 1997 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium Digest.

[17]  F. Ali,et al.  A wide-band GaAs monolithic spiral quadrature hybrid and its circuit applications , 1991 .

[18]  I. D. Robertson,et al.  Linearised microwave mixer using simplified feedforward technique , 1999 .

[19]  N. El-Zein,et al.  A MMIC lumped element directional coupler with arbitrary characteristic impedance and its application , 2000, 2000 30th European Microwave Conference.