A 60 GHz Up-Conversion Mixer in 22 nm FD-SOI CMOS with Back-Gate Mode Switching

A 60 GHz direct up-conversion mixer in 22 nm FD-SOI is presented. Based on an output buffer with negative feedback, a 1-dB output compression point (P
o1dB
) of 0.4 dBm and a conversion gain of 4.5 dB are achieved. The required local oscillator (LO) power is only −11 dBm due to an LO buffer. Including the buffers, the total DC power is 18.6 mW. The circuit core occupies 0.12 mm
²
. Compared to state-of-the-art CMOS mixers at 60 GHz, the circuit shows the highest P
o1dB
and the lowest LO power at high conversion gain. Moreover, for the first time, the switching between active and standby mode via back-gate biasing is investigated for such a mixer. The back-gate switching avoids the breakdown problems of front-gate switching.