A Low-Power Low-Voltage Down-Conversion Mixer for 5G Applications at 28 GHz in 22-nm FD-SOI CMOS Technology

This paper presents a compact direct down-conversion mixer for broadband 5G applications. A single-balanced architecture with pMOS active loads, followed by CMOS output buffers were implemented in a 22 nm FD-SOI technology. Low-Q matching networks were used for the transconductance (Gm) and switching-stages to broaden the bandwidth of operation, while a capacitive low-pass filter, connecting the switching pair and the active load, improved the ports isolation. A maximum conversion gain of 12.5 dB for a DC power consumption of 25mW when the local-oscillator (LO) power was 0dBm at 28 GHz, was experimentally demonstrated in agreement with circuit simulation. A-3dB radio-frequency (RF) band broader than 4.4 GHz was measured, while the input power in 1dB gain compression was above -15dBm, and the minimum single-sideband noise figure (SSB NF) was 7 dB. Finally, for the smallest voltage supply and occupation area presented in literature, comparable gain, linearity, bandwidth, and noise performance were demonstrated against the state of the art.