Active GaAs FET Mixers Using

the ATF-10136, ATF-13736,

and ATF-13484

Application Note G005

conversion. Passive double- design of an upconverter. The

NOTE: The ATF-13484 has balanced mixers (DBMs) are active mixer is not a reciprocal
been obsoleted. However, the commonly used for both device as is the typical diode
design techniques used with applications. DBMs offer balance mixer. In a typical double-
the ATF-13484 active mixer reasonable impedance matches balanced mixer, each port is
can be applied to the and good port-to-port isolation designed to cover a particular
ATF-13736 as well. but do require at least +7 dBm of frequency range. The RF port
LO drive and always have typically covers the higher
Introduction conversion loss of 6 to 8 dB which frequencies whereas the IF port is
This application note documents adds directly to the IF amplifier generally matched at the lower
the results of using the ATF-10136 noise figure. An alternative frequencies. Therefore when used
as an active mixer at S band and solution is the use of a MESFET as a down-converter, the RF port
the ATF-13736 and ATF-13484 at as an active mixer. By making use is the input port and the IF port is
Ku band. of the non-linear properties of a the output port. When
MESFET when it is biased near upconverting, the IF port
The ATF-10136 is a 500 µm gate cut-off, the active FET mixers becomes the input port and the
periphery MESFET device that described in this note provide low RF port the output port. The
typically provides a 0.6 dB noise noise figures, reasonable situation for an active mixer is
figure in LNA applications at conversion gain and good port-to- different due to the non-
S band. As an active mixer the port isolation with a minimum of bidirectional properties of the
ATF-10136 is capable of SSB noise matching network circuitry. active device. Whether designed
figures as low as 4.5 dB with as a down-converter or an up-
several dB of conversion gain. Although downconverters are converter, the gate-source
Both the ATF-13736 and the described, the same design junction of the MESFET is
ATF-13484 are 250 µm MESFETs concepts can be applied to the matched at the frequency that
that typically produce LNA noise
figures of about 2 dB at 12 GHz.
As active mixers, these MESFETs LO
IF RF
are capable of SSB noise figures RF
of 5.0 dB with associated
conversion gains from unity to
IF
nearly 5 dB depending on
bandwidth requirements.

LO Vdd Vdd
The typical microwave Vgg
Vgg
communications system uses GATE PUMPED DRAIN PUMPED
mixers for frequency up- or down- Figure 1. Gate and drain pumped active mixers
 2

needs to be converted and is pumped mixer – thereby minimiz- to achieve a low noise active
designated as the input port. The ing losses that contribute to noise mixer. Simply matching S11, the
drain-source junction of the figure. input reflection coefficient of the
MESFET is then matched at the device, for lowest input VSWR at
desired converted frequency and The source-pumped mixer is the RF frequency should provide
is designated as the output port. somewhat harder to implement. the lowest noise performance.
Raising the source above RF (Circuits presented in this note
Mixer Topologies ground may introduce some sta- were originally designed for a low
An active mixer can take on any bility problems that are more noise match to be used as an
of three basic circuit topologies. difficult to solve than with other LNA.) With the addition of a small
The difference in each topology is mixer types. amount of source inductance,
determined by how local however, a noise match provides
oscillator power is injected. The mixer designs presented in a reasonable input match. Low
this bulletin are the drain-pumped noise amplifier design principles
The most common form of active variety. It is relatively easy to take are covered in application notes
GaAs FET mixer is the gate- a stable amplifier circuit and AN-G004 and AN-G001.4,5
pumped configuration shown in adapt it for active mixer use. The
Figure 1. In this configuration, the RF input port of the amplifier is A good start for the output match-
FET source leads are normally also used as the RF input port of ing network is to merely match
placed at RF ground potential and the drain pumped mixer with the the device output reflection coef-
the LO is injected into the FET RF output port of the amplifier ficient, S22, at the LO frequency.
gate. The LO is normally injected serving as the LO input port. The With the help of the computer, the
through a 10 to 13 dB coupler. existing bias decoupling network input network is optimized for
This allows the RF signal to be in the drain circuit can be used low low noise or best input match
injected into the gate through the with slight modification for ex- while the output network is de-
low loss path of the coupler, tracting the IF signal. signed to provide a good match at
thereby minimizing its contribu- Additional information on active the LO frequency. The optimum
tion to noise figure. A micro- mixers can be referenced. 1,2,3 LO match and LO power can then
stripline coupler is typically used be found empirically during bench
at the microwave frequencies Mixer Design tests. Providing a good impedance
where size is small. At the lower Although the active mixer is a match at the LO frequency re-
frequencies the coupler could ac- non-linear application, it is still duces the LO requirement.
tually be manufactured using possible to use a linear analysis Generally 0 to +3 dBm is optimum
discrete component/toroidal circuit design program to aid in for lowest noise operation while
transformer techniques. The IF is the initial design. The sections to higher LO power raises conver-
then extracted from the drain follow describe the basic steps sion gain and power output at the
through an impedance matching that went into designing the mix- risk of increased noise figure.
network. ers, including the use of the
computer to optimize impedance The bias decoupling circuit design
Alternative active mixer designs match and stability. The tech- should follow similar guidelines
include injecting the LO into ei- niques described in this note give to those used when designing a
ther the drain or the source of the the designer a method from which typical small signal amplifier. A
FET. The advantage of the drain- to begin, and with some λ/4 high impedance microstripline
pumped mixer, is the inherently benchwork an active mixer can followed by an open circuited low
lower noise figure with a reduc- be designed and duplicated. impedance λ/4 microstripline
tion in noise figure on the order of provides adequate decoupling of
1 dB. A typical drain- This design philosophy centers the DC bias current from the input
pumped mixer circuit is also around the drain pumped mixer matching network. One of the
shown in Figure 1. With the LO with the source at RF ground. The most important circuit parameters
being injected into the drain, references suggest that it is not to monitor during optimization is
there is no need for the input cou- necessary to match the input of stability. The computer analysis
pler that is required with the gate the FET for minimum noise figure program can be best used to
 3

RF MATCHING NETWORK LO/IF PORT DIPLEXER NETWORK

A low impedance at the IF
IMPEDANCE
frequency should also be placed
IMPEDANCE
MATCH @ RF MATCH @ LO at the gate of the FET. This
FREQUENCY
FREQUENCY prevents loss of IF signal out of
RF
LO the RF port. The bias decoupling
IN CBLOCK
FET CBLOCK IN
network consisting of a λ/4
transmission line (at the RF
frequency) followed by a low
λ/4 HI Z @ RF λ/4 HI Z @ LO frequency resistive termination
FREQUENCY CBYPASS @ LO FREQUENCY IF
FREQUENCY CBLOCK OUT can be used. Although the
guidelines suggest that a “short”
O.C. LMATCH
@ IF be provided, a quick analysis on
λ/4 LO Z @ RF 50 W
CMATCH
R (10-50) FREQUENCY CBYPASS @ IF the computer generally shows an
@ IF instability. It is best to provide as
CBYPASS
low an impedance as possible
–VG
@ IF without creating any potential
+VD stability problems. A good
Figure 2. Drain pumped active mixer using DC grounded source leads compromise is to place a 10 to 50
Ω resistor in series with the bias
ensure virtually unconditional pumped mixer this becomes decoupling line. The use of an
stability. Although the FET is difficult if the RF and LO open circuited λ/4 microstripline
driven into its non-linear region frequencies are near each other. in parallel with the resistive
where the S parameters are This would occur for an IF that is termination provides a good low
somewhat different, the small in the VHF frequency range, i.e., impedance at the RF frequency,
signal analysis is still useful in up to several hundred MHz. thereby minimizing the effect of
determining any potential the resistive termination on mixer
problem areas. Since the bias For a drain pumped mixer, it is noise figure. Stability is always
decoupling network is low-pass best to present a diplexer circuit the goal.
by design, it also provides a at the drain. One port provides the
convenient means of extracting LO match with rejection at the IF 2.3 GHz Active Mixer
the IF signal. The IF can be frequency. The second port of the
The 2.3 GHz active mixer is a
coupled out through a blocking diplexer provides the IF match
slight variation of the low noise
capacitor or an additional low with a high impedance at both the
amplifier described in HP
pass matching network can be RF and LO frequencies. This can
application note AN-G0044.
used to improve the IF match and be accomplished with the simple
Figure 3 shows the required
conversion gain. RF to IF and LO circuitry shown in Figure 2.
modifications to the LNA for
to IF isolation also improves with Choosing a LO port blocking
mixer operation. The input
the addition of the low pass capacitor with a very small value
matching network, which was
matching network at the IF port. provides some rejection at the IF
designed for optimum noise
frequency where the IF is less
figure, was left intact. The output
For maximum mixer efficiency, than 0.1 fL0. The use of a series λ/4
matching network was used “as
the following additional bias decoupling line (at the LO
is” to feed the LO signal into the
guidelines should be followed. In frequency) off the drain port
mixer. A lowpass network
the case of a downconverting provides rejection at the LO
consisting of a series inductor and
drain-pumped active mixer, the frequency while simultaneously
a shunt capacitor was added to
circuitry attached to the drain of passing DC and the IF. The IF can
the output bias decoupling
the FET should provide a short or then be matched to improve
network to improve the IF match.
a low impedance at the RF conversion gain if desired. A
The mixer was tested with an RF
frequency. This helps to properly designed diplexer
signal of 2300 MHz and an LO
recirculate the RF currents, minimizes LO drive requirements
frequency of 2150 MHz. The
preventing loss of RF signal out of while simultaneously directing
resultant IF was 150 MHz.
the LO port which could effect the IF signal to the IF port.
conversion gain. For a drain-
 4

Both the LO drive level and the

Z3 Z4 Z8
DC operating point of the FET are
ATF-10136 C2 varied for optimum performance.
C1 10
3 LO Table 1 describes typical
RF Z2 50 Ω
50 Ω Z1 IN
IN 1 2, 4
C5
Z7 performance.
10 λ/4 L1
Z5 21
λ/4 10 20 IF Higher conversion gain is
R1 R3
OUT achieved with increased LO drive.
51
51
Z6 λ/4 0.001 Generally, lower noise perfor-
C6 mance is achieved at lower LO
THE DECIMAL VALUES OF C3 R2 C4
CAPACITANCE ARE IN µF; 1000 1000 drive levels.
OTHERS ARE IN pF; AND C7 0.01 R4
RESISTANCES ARE IN OHMS.
5V The optimum drain-to-source
1K
voltage was found empirically to
Figure 3. Schematic diagram of the 2.3 GHz active mixer using the ATF-10136, be 0.5 V at a drain current of 3.7
Z1 through Z8 are etched microstripline circuitry discussed in Application Note mA when LO is applied.
AN-G004. Change R2 to 215 ohms and add inductor L1 = 7 turns #30 wire, 0.050
Increasing the drain-to-source
inch ID
voltage increases conversion gain
at the expense of noise figure.
REDUCE TO 3.750 ±0.005 (For simplicity, passive biasing
was used in the first prototypes.)
The gate is DC grounded and
resistor R2 between the source
and ground sets the drain current.
The use of active biasing is still
preferred in production so that
the bias point is stabilized despite
changes in saturated drain current
REDUCE TO 3.000 ±0.005

(Idss), and pinch-off voltage (Vp)

from device to device.

The performance shown in Table

1 is achieved without additional
RF tuning on the circuit.
Conversion gain performance can
be improved with some tuning.
Noise figure is measured with an
image rejection filter in place so
that SSB noise figures can be
achieved.

Figure 4. 1X artwork for the 2.3 GHz active mixer etched on 0.031 inch material 12 GHz Active Mixer
with dielectric constant of 2.2 The ATF-13736 and the ATF-13484
are analyzed as 12 GHz mixers for
DBS service. The ATF-13736 is in
Table 1. 2.3 GHz ATF-10136 Mixer Performance (Vds = 0.5 V, Id = 3.7 mA) the micro-x package and is
typically used as a third stage in a
LO Power Conversion Gain SSB NF typical three-stage DBS LNA. The
1.20 mW 2.65 dB 4.45 dB noise figure of the device used in
a mixer application is not as
1.35 mW 3.00 dB 4.93 dB
critical as it would normally be
1.50 mW 3.40 dB 5.23 dB
for a first stage of an LNA.
 5

Both Ku band mixers required +10

Z8 Z2
dBm of LO for best overall gain
Q1
1.0
and noise figure performance.
LO This could possibly be reduced to
RF Z3 50 Ω
50 Ω 50 Ω Z1 IN
IN
C1
C2 +7 dBm by providing a better
Z4 Z5 impedance match at the LO port.
λ/4 λ/4
0.001 The ATF-13736 mixer was
0.001
purposely optimized for
C5
C3 Z6 λ/4 IF maximum conversion gain at mid-
OUT
THE DECIMAL VALUES OF 100 Z7
150 C4 band while the ATF-13484 mixer
CAPACITANCE ARE IN µF; l/4
was designed for flatter
OTHERS ARE IN pF; AND –VG
OTHERS ARE IN OHMS. conversion gain. Both mixers
+VD exhibit acceptable gain and noise
Figure 5. Schematic diagram of the 12 GHz active mixer using either the ATF- figure performance over a
13736 or the ATF-13484. Z1 through Z8 are etched microstripline circuitry bandwidth of about 1 GHz.

For best performance and

repeatability at Ku band
frequencies it is suggested that
active biasing be used. Direct
grounding of the FET source leads
prevents undesirable bypass
capacitor parasitics from having
an effect on mixer stability.

Port-to-port isolation was very

good considering the simple
matching circuitry involved. The
ATF-13736 mixer exhibited a LO
to IF isolation of 22 dB and an LO
Figure 6. 2X artwork for the 12 GHz active mixer etched on 0.031 inch material to RF isolation of 18 dB. The ATF-
with dielectric constant of 2.2
13484 mixer exhibited LO to IF
isolation of 24 dB and an LO to RF
The schematic diagram of the 12 Mixer 1 was tuned specifically for isolation of 13 dB. With a drain-
GHz mixer is shown in Figure 5. maximum gain in the middle of pumped mixer, the S12 of the FET
The artwork shown in Figure 6 the 11. 7 to 12.2 GHz frequency is the major factor in determining
can be adapted easily for either range while mixer 2 was tuned for the LO to RF isolation. LO to IF
device. The input matching a flatter broadband response. isolation is determined primarily
network’s design provides a Tuning is accomplished by by the simple λ/4 bias decoupling
reasonable impedance match to adjustment of the input matching network.
50 Ω and a good noise figure from network elements. The
11.7 to 12.2 GHz. Table 2 shows conversion gain and SSB noise
the microstrip parameters and figure performance for both
component parameters required mixers is shown in Tables 3 and 4.
for each of the devices. The
output matching network
Table 2. Circuit Parameters for Ku band Mixers
provides a good match at the LO
frequency of 10.75 GHz for both Mixer Q1 C1 Z1 Z8
devices. The IF is simply tapped Width Length
off of the bias decoupling 1 ATF-13736 2.7 pF 0.035 in. 0.120 in.
network with a capacitor to
provide DC isolation. 2 ATF-13484 1.0 pF 0.024 in. 0.0 in.
Table 3. 12 GHz ATF-13736 Mixer, Vds = 1.5 V, Id = 2.6 mA an improvement in overall noise
figure of nearly 0.1 dB with an
RF Frequency IF Frequency Conversion SSB Noise
(GHz) (MHz) Gain (dB) Figure (dB)
associated improvement in
conversion gain of 7 to 9 dB.
10.9 150 -1.4 8.8
11.1 350 1.0 7.0
References
11.2 450 -1.5 7.6
1. R.A. Pucel, D. Masse, R. Bera,
11.3 550 -1.7 7.6 “Performance of GaAs
11.4 650 -0.5 7.6 MESFET Mixers at X Band”,
11.5 750 0.3 7.7 IEEE Trans. Microwave
11.6 850 1.2 6.0 Theory and Techniques,
11.7 950 1.5 5.6 MTT-24,
11.75 1000 1.3 4.8 PP. 351-360, June 1976
11.8 1050 3.0 5.1
2. S. Maas, “Analysis and Design
of GaAs MESFET Mixers”,
11.85 1100 5.0 5.2
1984 IEEE MTT-S Digest,
11.9 1150 3.6 5.0 pp. 432-433
12.0 1250 2.8 5.9 3. P. Bura, R. Dikshit, “FET
12.1 1350 2.6 5.8 Mixers for Communications
12.2 1450 0.5 6.9 and Satellite Transponders”,
IEEE MTT-S Int. Microwave
Symp Digest, 1976, pp. 90-92.
4. HP application note
Table 4. ATF-13484 Mixer, Vds = 1.1 V, Id = 2.6 mA
AN-G004: S-Band Low Noise
RF Frequency IF Frequency Conversion SSB Noise Amplifiers - ATF- 10136 and
(GHz) (MHz) Gain (dB) Figure (dB) ATF-13484
11.0 250 -2.6 13.0 5. HP application note
11.1 350 -1.8 12.0 AN-G001: ATF-13136
Demonstration Amplifier
11.2 450 0.3 8.1
11.3 550 0.3 7.0
11.4 650 -0.1 7.6
11.5 750 -0.4 8.2
11.6 850 0.9 6.7
11.7 950 2.1 5.2
11.8 1050 1.3 5.4
11.9 1150 1.6 5.4
12.0 1250 1.8 5.3
12.1 1350 0.2 6.7 www.hp.com/go/rf
For technical assistance or the location of
12.2 1450 0.3 8.9 your nearest Hewlett-Packard sales office,
distributor or representative call:
Americas/Canada: 1-800-235-0312 or
(408) 654-8675
Conclusion Ku band. Design techniques for Far East/Australasia: Call your local HP
This application note presents the converting a simple LNA design sales office.
results of using GaAs FET devices into an active mixer are also Japan: (81 3) 3335-8152
as active mixers in the 2.3 GHz included. Europe: Call your local HP sales office.
and 12 GHz frequency ranges.
Data Subject to Change
Active mixers are capable of In a typical Ku band
producing SSB noise figures of Copyright © 1992 Hewlett-Packard Co.
downconverter, the substitution
less than 5 dB with associated of an active mixer for the Obsoletes 5091-3744E
conversion gains of up to 5 dB at standard diode mixer can produce 5968-3246E (1/99)