Design of a Ka-band 0.18-μm BiCMOS upconverter

Abstract

The design of a 0.18μm BiCMOS upconverter in Ka-band is presented. The upconverter consists of a single-ended-to-differential active balun, double-balanced Gilbert mixer cell, differential amplifier, and band pass filter. The input active balun is used to facilitate on-wafer characterization from a single-ended IF signal. With an LO power of 0.6 dBm, the upconverter exhibits a conversion gain of 22 dB, 1-dB input power of -23.8 dBm, 1-dB output power of -2.4 dBm, and maximum output power of 1 dBm at 35 GHz, while consuming a DC current of 40 mA from a supply voltage of 1.8V.