Design Considerations for a Low-Power Fully Integrated MMIC Parametric Upconverter in SiGe BiCMOS

This article presents the detailed design procedure of a millimeter-wave low-power fully integrated monolithic millimeter-wave integrated circuit (MMIC) parametric upconversion circuit in SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) BiCMOS technology. This article comprehensively describes the design considerations to fully exploit the abrupt $C$ – $V$ characteristics achieved by the investigated diode-connected HBT configuration that, compared with traditionally employed devices, presents a $C_{\max }/C_{\min }$ ratio two orders of magnitude higher. The parametric principle is revised in order to adapt its applicability for these devices and achieve, for the first time, a high-frequency and fully integrated upconverter implementation. Then, the presented concept is verified by designing a 60-GHz parametric double-sideband upconverter prototype. The fabricated circuit demonstrates a conversion gain up to 1.5 dB while consuming 618 $\mu \text{W}$ . The circuit is optimized for wideband operation with a 3-dB IF bandwidth of 5 GHz in both sidebands. Further verification of the theory is provided, by demonstrating and measuring a solution to increase the conversion gain up to 5 dB while reducing the power consumption to 400 $\mu \text{W}$ . In addition, it is shown how the presented distinct design procedure can be extrapolated, within the limitations of the particularly chosen nonlinear device, to design different parametric-based circuits at any arbitrary frequency band.