A Wideband Single-balanced Down-mixer for the 60 GHz Band in 65 nm CMOS

Michael Kraemer (1) , Mariano Ercoli (1) , Daniela Dragomirescu (1) , Robert Plana (1)

1 LAAS-MINC - Équipe MIcro et Nanosystèmes pour les Communications sans fil

This paper presents a single-balanced direct down conversion mixer for the unlicensed 60 GHz band. It is based on a differential pair employing the current bleeding technique. An integrated 60 GHz wideband passive balun allows the use of a single ended local oscillator (LO). The circuit is fabricated using the 65nm bulk CMOS technology of ST Microelectronics. The mixer's baseband reaches from DC to 2 GHz. The measured radio frequency (RF) bandwidth exceeds 11 GHz, ranging from 54 GHz to at least 65 GHz. The measured RF, IF (intermediate frequency) and LO port return losses lie below -20 dB, -15 dB and -10 dB, respectively, within this entire band. A maximum conversion gain of 9.1 dB at 100MHz from the carrier is achieved, while typical values measured at 1 GHz IF lie around 6 dB throughout the entire band. The mixer delivers these optimum results for LO powers as low as -5 dBm. The output referred 1 dB compression point reaches -5dBm for -1dBm of LO power. The simulated single sideband (SSB) noise figure is of 9 dB. Including the differential IF buffer that can drive two singleended 50Ω loads, the circuit draws 16.8mA from a 1V supply. The pad-limited die size is only 0.52 x 0.49 mm2.

Mots clés: wideband down-mixer; 60GHz; CMOS 65nm

Domaines: Micro et nanotechnologies/Microélectronique

Michael Kraemer, Mariano Ercoli, Daniela Dragomirescu, Robert Plana. A Wideband Single-balanced Down-mixer for the 60 GHz Band in 65 nm CMOS. Asia Pacific Microwave Conference (APMC 2010), Dec 2010, Yokohama, Japan. p.1849-1852. ⟨hal-00591007⟩