Monolithic Integrated 210 GHz Couplers for Balanced

Mixers and Image Rejection Mixers

D. Lopez-Diaz*, I. Kallfass, A. Tessmann, H. Massler, A. Leuther,
M. Schlechtweg, O. Ambacher

Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF

Tullastrasse 72, D-79108 Freiburg, Germany
*Tel: +49 761 5159522 Fax: +49 761 5159565 e-mail: daniel.lopez-diaz@iaf.fraunhofer.de

Abstract—A Lange coupler and a Wilkinson essential to generate the required phase shift. An
power divider have been successfully realized image rejection mixer is typically realized by
using a metamorphic high electron mobility adding an external 90 degree hybrid to an I/Q
transistor (mHEMT) monolithic microwave mixer. Fig. 1 shows the topology of a classical
integrated circuit (MMIC) process to enable the
integrated I/Q mixer with a power divider at the
integration of balanced mixers and image
rejection mixers above 200 GHz. Prior to
RF port and a Lange coupler at the LO port.
manufacturing the coupler performance has been
verified on basis of 3D EM-simulations. The Q
measurement results have been compared to the
simulations up to 220 GHz demonstrating an 50 Ω
excellent agreement. A measured insertion loss of
only 0.8 dB for the Wilkinson divider and 1.4 dB
for the Lange couplers has been achieved at RF 100 Ω
210 GHz. The four fingers Lange coupler shows a LO
measured +/- 1 dB coupling bandwidth of 46 GHz
from 174 – 220 GHz. The measured return loss is
better than 12 dB for the Lange coupler and
better than 14 dB for the Wilkinson divider. The I
measured isolation stays well above 20 dB for Fig. 1. Topology of an I/Q mixer.
both couplers.
Balanced mixers could be built by either
Index Terms—Lange coupler, Wilkinson using a single 180 degree hybrid or two 90
divider, Wilkinson combiner, quadrature coupler, degree hybrids. Fig. 2 shows the topology of a
balanced mixer, I/Q mixer, metamorphic high
balanced mixer comprising two 90 degree Lange
electron mobility transistor (mHEMT).
couplers.

IF
I. INTRODUCTION 50 Ω 50 Ω

Advanced MMIC technologies enable the

integration of complete single chip receivers at
millimeter-wave frequencies from
200 - 300 GHz which has been identified as an
important frequency regime due to the
atmospheric window around 220 GHz [1],[2].
Those new developments are driven by the
needs for high resolution imaging systems or
high data rate wireless communication.
A high port-to-port isolation and
suppression of the unwanted sideband are
fundamental requirements for mixers in receiver
frontends. Image rejection mixers are used to
suppress the unwanted sideband while balanced
mixers offer excellent LO-to-RF isolation. For
both types of mixers quadrature couplers are
RF LO
Fig. 2. Topology of a balanced mixer.
With increasing operational frequency the
dimensions of the passive circuit elements
become smaller and allow the integration
together with active circuitry. In this paper, we
present a 210 GHz Lange coupler and a
Wilkinson power divider which have been
successfully fabricated on a 100 nm mHEMT
process and could be easily integrated to build
both, a fully integrated I/Q mixer as well as a
balanced mixer circuit.

978-1-4244-7412-7/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE

 II. TECHNOLOGY

The couplers have been fabricated in the

metamorphic high electron mobility transistor
(mHEMT) technology of the Fraunhofer IAF.
This technology achieves an extrinsic transit
frequency of fT = 220 GHz and a maximum
oscillation frequency of fmax = 300 GHz for a
100 nm gate length device and an fT of 400 GHz
and an fmax of 500 GHz for a 50 nm gate length
device. The mHEMT layers are grown on 4”
semi-insulating GaAs substrates by molecular
beam epitaxy.
The process features two Au metallization
layers with an air bridge technology in the
second metal layer. The first metal layer is Fig. 3. EM-model and simulated E-field of the
Wilkinson divider.
electron beam evaporated with a thickness of
0.3 µm. The second metal layer is plated with a
The final design has been fabricated and
thickness of 2.7 µm. A special backside process
subsequently measured up to 220 GHz. Fig. 4
has been introduced to suppress parasitic
shows the fabricated test structures for on-wafer
substrate modes in MMICs operating in the high
S-parameter characterization. For the two port
millimeter-wave region. In this additional
measurements the unused port of the Wilkinson
process step, the GaAs substrate is thinned down
divider is terminated with a 50 Ω NiCr resistor.
to a thickness of 50 µm. The substrate vias are
then etched using resist as etching mask.

III. WILKINSON DIVIDER

The presented Wilkinson divider is a

conventional design realized in a grounded
coplanar transmission line technology. It
consists of two quarter-wavelength arms with an
impedance of 70 Ω and a 100 Ω isolation
resistor which is realized in NiCr. Each branch
has a length of 160 µm and the inner conductor
has a width of 7 µm. Together with a 50 µm
Fig. 4. Photograph of the Wilkinson divider test
ground-to-ground spacing the 70 Ω line
structure.
impedance is achieved.
The structure has been simulated using the A comparison between simulated and
Ansoft HFSS EM-simulator. Fig. 3 shows the measured performance of the monolithic
simulated structure as well as the electric field in integrated Wilkinson divider is shown in Fig. 5.
the GaAs substrate. Due to the very thin The port coupling is very close to the simulation
substrate with the grounded backside an electric results and stays at -3.8 dB in the entire G-Band
field is also induced between the inner (140 - 220 GHz). The measured isolation
conductor of the transmission line and the between port 2 and port 3 has its maximum of
backside metallization. The transmission lines 27.4 dB slightly below the simulated frequency
could therefore no longer be treated as pure at 189 GHz.
coplanar but as a mixture of coplanar and
microstrip transmission line. It could also be
seen in Fig. 3 that the field in the substrate is
prevented from propagating outside the circuit
by the substrate vias.

0
S31
-5 S21
S-parameters / dB
-10 S33
S22
-15
-20
-25 S32
-30
140 160 180
Frequency / GHz
Fig. 5. Simulated (doted) and measured (solid)
S-parameters of the Wilkinson divider.
IV. LANGE COUPLER
A four fingers structure has been chosen for
the Lange coupler with a finger length of
124 µm which equals a quarter-wavelength at
210 GHz and determines the center frequency of
the coupler. The width of the lines as well as the
slot width between the lines are the two major
design parameters which effect the coupling
between the direct port and the coupled port of
the Lange coupler. The slot width has been
chosen to the minimum value allowed by the
design rules of 2 µm. The width of each line is
5.5 µm.
Fig. 6. EM-model and simulated E-field of the Lange
Coupler.
The Lange coupler has been fabricated on
the same MMIC process as the Wilkinson
divider and has been simulated with the Ansoft
HFSS simulator. The simulated structure with
the electric field in the GaAs substrate is shown
in Fig. 6. It could also be seen, that the field in
the substrate is blocked by the substrate vias
which prevent the unwanted modes in the
substrate from propagating outside the coupler
structure.
The realized test structures for the
S-parameter measurements are shown in Fig. 7.
The two unused ports have been terminated with
50 Ω NiCr resistors.
200 220
Fig. 7. Photograph of the realized Lange coupler test
structures.
The comparison between the simulation
results and the measured performance of the
coupler is shown in Fig. 8. The port coupling is
close to the simulated values and achieves
-4.4 dB at 210 GHz. The relative +/- 1 dB
coupling bandwidth is 23.4 % centered at
197 GHz in the measured frequency range. The
linear shape of the measured port coupling
indicates an even higher center frequency. The
insertion loss of the Lange coupler is slightly
higher compared to the Wilkinson divider since
the coupler core is realized in the 0.3 µm thick
first metal layer only. The measured isolation
between port 1 and port 4 is better than the
simulated data and achieves its maximum of
24 dB at 220 GHz. The measured return loss is
reasonably close to the simulation results and
stays above 10 dB in the relevant frequency
range.
0
S31
-5
S21
S-parameters / dB
-10
-15
S22
-20
S33
-25 S41
-30
140 160 180 200 220
Frequency / GHz
Fig. 8. Simulated (doted) and measured (solid)
S-parameters of the Lange Coupler.
 The performance of the mixers comprising a
Lange coupler depends strongly on the phase
difference between the coupled port and the
direct port of the Lange coupler. Fig. 9 shows
the measured and the simulated phase difference
of the Lange coupler versus the input frequency.
A phase difference of 89° has been achieved at
210 GHz. The phase deviation in the coupling
bandwidth between 174 - 220 GHz is 4°.
120
110
ΔPhase / Deg.
100
90
80
70 Simulation
Measured
60
140 160 180 200 220
Frequency / GHz
Fig. 9. Simulated and measured phase difference
between the coupled port and the direct port of the
Lange coupler.
V. CONCLUSION
We have successfully demonstrated two
different coupler topologies for both, balanced
and image rejection mixers operating at
frequencies above 210 GHz. The measurement
results demonstrate a very good agreement to
the EM-simulations up to 220 GHz. Both
couplers have been fabricated on the IAF
mHEMT technology and will be further used to
build fully integrated balanced mixers and
image rejection mixers.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank their
colleagues from the Fraunhofer IAF technology
department for excellent epitaxial growth and
wafer processing. This work was supported by
the German Federal Ministry of Defense
(BMVg) and the Bundeswehr Technical Center
for Information Technology and Electronics
(WTD81).
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