Current-Steered Active Balun with Phase Correction

Abstract

Abstract-An active balun using current steering for phase correction is presented. The proposed active balun is constructed with two different unit balun structures based on current steering to reduce phase and amplitude errors. This type of topology can be compared with the conventional phase and amplitude correction techniques which do not incorporate the current steering. Designed and fabricated active balun in 0.18 μm CMOS process operates over 0.95 -1.45 GHz band, showing input reflection coefficient under -15 dB, phase error of 11˚ and gain error of 0.5 dB. Gain is measured to be 0.3 dB maximum and power consumption of 7.2 mW is measured.

Active balun using resistive feedback for low gain imbalance

“…The designed balun shows lower phase error compared with our earlier work as shown in Ref. as expected although the gain error is a bit degraded. In spite of ambiguous comparison for power dissipation due to different frequency band and voltage gain, it can be said that the proposed balun may provide a way to reduce power consumption.…”

“…The fundamental principle of active baluns is to realize 180° out‐of‐phase characteristic with such as common‐source and common‐gate configurations . A basic unit circuit for the conventional active baluns is shown in Figure a where it is constructed with common‐source and common‐gate structure.…”