The Design of a 1–6 GHz Broadband Double-Balanced Mixer

This brief proposes a 1–6 GHz broadband double-balanced mixer. On the basis of the standard Marchand balun mixer, two techniques to enhance the performance of the mixer are proposed. Firstly, by loading capacitors, the amplitude and phase imbalance of the balun at high frequencies are improved, thereby expanding the relative bandwidth of the mixer by 0.1. Secondly, by cascading a first-order LC filter at the intermediate-frequency (IF) port, the leakage of radio frequency (RF) and local oscillator (LO) signals at the IF port is reduced by approximately 8 dB and 7 dB, respectively. This brief analyzes the various parameters that affect balun indicators and designs a broadband balun with a double-layer spiral line structure. As a result of these technologies, a 1–6 GHz double-balanced mixer is realized. The chip area is 1.13 mm × 0.95 mm, and the isolation between the IF port and the RF port is 34 dB and yields 13.5 dBm input power at 1 dB compression point (IP1 dB). The chip is fabricated via the GaAs pHEMT process.