Design and optimization of downconversion mixer for RF front-end

Abstract

This document gives information about the final year Master’s thesis of design and optimization of downconversion mixer for radio frequency (RF) receiver architectures. The report concludes with the types of RF front-end systems, mixer topologies, mixer functionality, biasing optimization process for a single balanced mixer, analysis of the mixer performances before and after the layout creation, and, simulation of the mixer using tools provided by Cadence. The main goal of this thesis was to create a Gilbert cell mixer and optimize it with machine learning. However with the limitation of the time frame, the goal was changed to design an active single balanced mixer up to the layout level.

The mixer has a conversion gain (CG) of 6.0 dB and 1 dB input compression point at -6.4 dBm after the completion of the layout. S11 (input reflection coefficient) of the mixer is at -15 dB and it has 570 MHz of 3 dB bandwidth. 22 nm FDSOI technology of GlobalFoundries was used for the process design kit (PDK) library components to design this mixer.