A compact gallium arsenide 60GHz image reject mixer using size reduction techniques for passives

In most MMIC designs, passive components occupy the largest area. Much work has been done in demonstrating passive components size reduction techniques at frequencies up to 10GHz. In this thesis, size reduction techniques are applied to a millimeter-wave system to realize a compact solution. Here, a 60GHz GaAs pHEMT-based image reject mixer is designed using a FET-resistive mixer topology. Capacitive loading methods are applied to the millimeter-wave power divider and quadrature coupler achieving an area reduction of 27% and 66%, respectively. Lumped element power combiners are used at the intermediate frequency sections instead of transmission lines to obtain a compact solution. Simulation results show the image reject mixer to have a conversion loss of 13.2dB, LO-RF isolation greater than 20dB and an image rejection ratio of 10dB at 60GHz. The total area of the MMIC is 6mm2.