A 10–36-GHz I/Q Mixer-First RX Using Current-Mode Coupler Cascade in 16-nm FinFET

A 10–36-GHz in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) mixer-first receiver is introduced. The receiver utilizes a current-mode hybrid coupler cascade for I/Q generation at the RF port. The design employs cascode transconductance cells for current combining after down conversion. The current-mode coupler cascade enables wideband I/Q generation while using single-ended couplers and single-balanced passive mixers, resulting in low-power consumption and a small footprint. The receiver is fabricated in Intel 16-nm FinFET process with a core area of <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.34\times 0.26$</tex-math> </inline-formula> mm<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup>. It demonstrates a measured conversion gain of 7–11 dB, a noise figure (NF) of 10–12 dB, and an IP<sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1dB</sub> of >1 dBm over the RF range of 10–36 GHz. The receiver supports an intermediate frequency (IF) bandwidth of up to 3 GHz and achieves I/Q phase and magnitude imbalances of <2 dB and <5°, respectively, while consuming <30 mW of dc power. The receiver’s wideband performance, high linearity, low dc power, and compact footprint make it an excellent candidate for multiband, multistandard 5G/6G systems.