A sub-harmonic RF transmitter architecture with simultaneous power combination and carrier-leakage cancellation is proposed. It employs an 8-phase ring-type voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), sub-harmonic mixers, driver amplifiers, and a balun. A signal power is combined with its 180° phase-shifted signal through the balun. Simultaneously carrier-leakage generating in sub-harmonic mixers is canceled by its phase difference. The proposed transmitter achieved 1 dBm 1-dB output compression point (P-1dB) under 1.8 V supply and -40 dBm carrier-leakage in 5 GHz band.

A 10-GHz sub-harmonic Gilbert mixer is demonstrated in this paper using the 0.35 µm SiGe BiCMOS technology. The time-delay when the sub-harmonic LO (Local Oscillator) stage generates sub-harmonic LO signals is compensated by using fully symmetrical multiplier pairs. High RF-to-IF isolation and sub-harmonic LO Gilbert cell with excellent frequency response can be achieved by the elimination of the time-delay. The SiGe BiCMOS sub-harmonic micromixer exhibits 17 dB conversion gain, -74 dB 2LO-to-RF isolation, IP1 dB of -20 dBm, and IIP3 of -10 dBm. The measured double sideband noise figure is 16 dB from 100-kHz to 100-MHz because the SiGe bipolar device has very low 1/f noise corner.