Design and fabrication of fully integrated Gilbert Cell down-conversion mixer in 0.15um GaAs phemt technology

This thesis introduces the design and fabrication of a 0.15um GaAs pHEMT technology-based active Gilbert Cell down-conversion mixer in the ultra-wideband frequency range (1-9 GHz). Active RF and LO baluns feed Gilbert Cell mixer core and also design of active output balun (combiner) which is implemented for low frequency IF output (100 MHz). Transistors in common base configuration drive this RF and LO baluns for input matching. Conversion gain of 17 dB is achieved with ±1 dB flatness over the frequency band. Single sideband noise figure is approximately 9.4~14 dB. The achieved input P1dB and IIP3 are -11.61 dBm and -1.61 dBm, respectively. RF-LO and LO-RF isolations are above 30 dB. The power consumption of the overall chip, including the mixer core, is below 163 mW and 34.65 mW, respectively, at 3.3V single voltage supply. All simulations are performed with an RF power of -12 dBm and LO power of +11 dBm. The chip is fully integrated and its size is 3.4x1.84 mm2 with all baluns and pads are included. The design procedure is applied using the AWR design environment with the WIN-PL1512 process design kit. To the best of author's knowledge, in this particular frequency range, there is no other GaAs pHEMT based Gilbert Cell down conversion mixer that contains active baluns in all three ports by using a single voltage supply in literature reviews.