A +12-dBm OIP3 60-GHz RF Downconversion Mixer With an Output-Matching, Noise- and Distortion-Canceling Active Balun for 5G Applications

A CMOS millimeter-wave (mmWave) downconversion mixer with a local-oscillator (LO) buffer is proposed for wireless Gb/s data-transfer enabling systems, such as 5G systems. To obtain high linearity at low supply voltages, the proposed mmWave downconversion mixer adopts an on-chip transformer-based topology. In order to achieve differential to single-ended conversion and IF output matching, while maintaining a high linearity performance, the proposed mmWave downconversion mixer incorporates an active balun with common-source and common-drain configurations employing common-mode noise and third-order intermodulation distortion cancellations. The proposed downconversion mixer with active balun and LO buffer was implemented using a 65-nm CMOS process and it draws 18 mA from a 1 V supply voltage. It demonstrates a gain greater than 5.6 dB, noise figure less than 10.9 dB, and third-order output intercept point more than 12.4 dBm, in the band from 57 to 66 GHz.