Double-Balanced Graphene Integrated Mixer with Outstanding Linearity

Abstract

A monolithic double-balanced graphene mixer integrated circuit (IC) has been successfully designed and fabricated. The IC adopted the cross-coupled resistive mixer topology, integrating four 500 nm-gate-length graphene field-effect transistors (GFETs), four on-chip inductors, and four on-chip capacitors. Passive-first-active-last fabrication flow was developed on 200 mm CMOS wafers. CMOS back-end-of-line processes were utilized to realize most fabrication steps followed by GFET-customized processes. Test results show excellent output spectrum purity with suppressed radio frequency (RF) and local oscillation (LO) signals feedthroughs, and third-order input intercept (IIP3) reaches as high as 21 dBm. The results are compared with a fabricated single-GEFT mixer, which generates IIP3 of 16.5 dBm. Stand-alone 500 nm-gate-length GFETs feature cutoff frequency 22 GHz and maximum oscillation frequency 20.7 GHz RF performance. The double-balanced mixer IC operated with off-chip baluns realizing a print-circuit-board level electronic system. It demonstrates graphene's potential to compete with other semiconductor technologies in RF front-end applications.

A 200 GHz CVD graphene FET based resistive subharmonic mixer

“…To date, considerable efforts have been made to develop graphene field effect transistor (G-FET) based microwave devices [11], [12] and circuits with extensive focus on frequency translating devices. While fundamental singleended [13] and double balanced [14] resistive mixers achieve conversion loss (CL) of 14 dB at 2 GHz and 33 dB at 3.6 GHz, the inherent symmetry of G-FET channel conductance was not utilized. For this purpose, subharmonic resistive G-FET mixers have been reported with 22 dB and 19 dB CL at 2-5 GHz and 24-31 GHz [10], [15], respectively.…”

Extracting Small‐Signal Model Parameters of Graphene‐Based Field‐Effect Transistors

“…Some finite element studies have investigated drift–diffusion equation and NEGF simulation . Analytical models have been presented by Ryhzii et al, Meric et al, and Habibpour et al In terms of small‐signal equivalent circuit model, though some similar small‐signal models have been adopted, no detail parameters extraction process are given. The small‐signal equivalent circuit is based on device topology.…”

A 185–215-GHz Subharmonic Resistive Graphene FET Integrated Mixer on Silicon

“…Additionally, frequency translating mixers have been widely investigated in different configurations. The fundamental single-ended [17] and double-balanced [18] resistive G-FET mixers have achieved the conversion loss (CL) values of 14 dB at 2 GHz and 33 dB at 3.6 GHz, respectively. These mixers, however, do not utilize the inherent symmetry of the G-FET channel resistance.…”