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V
C 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
COMPUTER-AIDED DESIGN OF
BROADBAND SINGLE BALANCED
WAVEGUIDE MIXER AT K-BAND
Arun Kumar
SAMEER Kolkata Centre, Plot-L2, Block-GP, Sector-5, Salt Lake,
Kolkata-700091, India; Corresponding author: arunkr1@gmail.com
Received 1 June 2010
ABSTRACT: In this article, computer-aided design of a broadband
single balanced waveguide mixer covering full K-band (18 to 26.5 GHz)
is presented. Emphasis has been given on simple design approach of the
mixer using commercially available CAD (computer-aided design) tools.
The mixer circuit is implemented on suspended stripline etched on soft
substrate that is integrated with RF (radio frequency) and LO (local
oscillator) waveguides. Conversion loss of 6–8 dB with 8.5 GHz
instantaneous IF (intermediate frequency) bandwidth has been achieved
with þ10 dBm LO power at 35 GHz and the RF swept from 18 to 26.5
GHz. A systematic design approach of the mixer is presented with its
simulated and experimental results. VC 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
difficult. That problem can be solved with broadband mixer with
fixed LO and wide instantaneous IF bandwidth. Several broad-
band mixers have been built in waveguide circuits in past [1–4].
For optimum performance, scaled mixer models were fabricated
to determine the embedding impedances of mixer mount. The
structures require wishker-contacted diodes, which were difficult
to align. Integrated circuit mixers have been also designed,
which requires LO band pass filter and coupler for RF-LO isola-
tion and to prevent dissipation of IF power in the LO port [5].
This article describes simple and systematic design approach of
broadband waveguide mixer at K-band using commercially
available CAD tools. The design does not require bandpass filter
to isolate LO and IF paths. Although in this article the mixer
design is outlined for K-band frequencie, mixers at high fre-
quencies such as millimeter wave frequencies can be imple-
mented using the same concept.
The mixer is made on a thin, low-dielectric-constant sub-
strate mounted in the E-plane of RF and LO rectangular wave-
guides with suspended stripline structure in between. The circuit
patterns are made on the substrate using conventional photoli-
thography and are thus cheaper to produce in mass quantities.
Planar GaAs Schottky barrier beam-lead diodes are used that are
mounted on the circuit with silver loaded conducting epoxy.
These diodes are commercially available with the potential for
volume manufacture while maintaining good control of the
diode parameters, instead of using higher performance diodes
from expensive specialist suppliers. This article describes design
of such a mixer covering RF band of 18–26.5 GHz, having IF
of 8.5–17 GHz and designed to operate without external tuning
elements like LO backshort. The LO power requirement is þ10
dBm.
2. MIXER CONFIGURATION
The mixer consists of a crossbar structure as shown in Figure 1.
LO signal is coupled to diodes via WR-28 waveguide to sus-
pended strip line transition, and RF signal is fed from WR-42
waveguide to reduced height waveguide. LO and RF signals
excites transverse electromagnetic (TEM) mode and transverse
electric (TE10) mode, respectively, at the diode plane so that the
mixer configuration behaves like 180
hybrid single balanced
mixer [6]. The IF mixing product generated at the diode plane is
extracted via a suspended stripline low pass filter. The mixer
has good LO-RF and RF-IF isolation because of its balanced
configuration. LO-IF isolation depends on the rejection of LO
signal at IF port due to the IF low pass filter response.

Microwave Opt Technol Lett 53:586–588, 2011; View this article at

wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.25759

Key words: broadband mixer; schottky diode; single balanced;

crossbar; computer-aided design (CAD)

1. INTRODUCTION
The design of modern microwave and millimeter wave commu-
nication systems require low-cost and high performance mixers.
Broadband mixers are key element for the receivers used in me-
teorology, radiometer, and broadband communication systems
(e.g., spread-spectrum). The broad IF bandwidth can be utilized
to extend the frequency range of existing receivers. In some
broadband receivers, where in addition to accepting a wide
range of RF frequency, wide instantaneous IF bandwidth is also
required, require sweeping LO frequency. Sweeping LO at high Figure 1 Mixer Configuration

586 MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 53, No. 3, March 2011 DOI 10.1002/mop

Figure 2 Top and bottom part of Mixer mount
3. MIXER DESIGN
The mixer design has been divided into three parts namely RF
matching transformer, LO-IF Diplexer, and IF Filter as shown in
Figure 1. The diodes are in series for RF signal so they offer
typically 200–300 X (RF impedance of each diode is typically
100–150 X) to RF waveguide [6]. Because the RF waveguide
characteristic impedance, Zpv (Power voltage impedance defini-
tion) varies from 300 to 450 X over the whole K-band, the match-
ing at the RF port is improved by introducing a transition from full
waveguide height to reduced waveguide height. The suspended
stripline channel behind the diode plane presents short circuit at
RF due to its reduced cross section. Its position from the diode
plane is also optimized for broadband RF matching. The design of
LO-IF diplexer is very critical and is important for broadband
mixer design. LO signal is coupled to diodes via WR28 waveguide
to reduced height waveguide. For optimum coupling of LO signal
to diodes, the position of LO waveguide short and the suspended
stripline channel length between LO and RF waveguides have
been optimized. The low pass filter has been designed on sus-
pended strip line in a 2 3 mm2 channel. The channel dimension
has been chosen such that it supports single mode (TEM) propaga-
tion and cuts off the higher order modes up to LO frequency.
The mixer circuit is fabricated on 10mil soft substrate from Rog-
ers Corporation with dielectric constant of 2.2. Beam lead GaAs
Schottky barrier diodes from MACOM are used for mixing purpose.
The diodes have low parasitic elements to provide low conversion
loss over broadband operation of the mixer, and they are attached to
the circuit with silver loaded conductive epoxy. The mixer mount is
divided into two parts at E-plane of RF and LO waveguides as indi-
cated in Figure 2. The mixer circuit is mounted in a groove of the
DOI 10.1002/mop MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 53, No. 3, March 2011
Figure 3 Simulated results of LO-IF diplexer (1-RF port, 2-LO port,
3-IF port)
bottom part and both the parts are clamped together with screws.
The groove depth is selected as 0.75 mm to suppress spurious and
higher order modes and offering low loss [7].
4. SIMULATED AND MEASURED RESULTS
Design and optimization of each section of the mixer are first
performed with finite element method available with commercial
software like Ansoft high frequency structure simulator (HFSS)
[8]. The simulated result of LO-IF diplexer is shown in Figure
3. After designing and optimizing each section, full-wave simu-
lation of the whole mixer model is carried out. Two waveguide
ports, one each for LO and RF, one suspended stripline port for
IF and two lumped ports for two diodes are assigned to the
model. The mixer model is then simulated from dc to 70 GHz
to accommodate IF, RF, image, sum, LO and its second har-
monic. The embedding impedances of the mixer mount pre-
sented at diodes at image and sum frequencies are important for
designing low conversion loss mixers [9]. Terminating image
frequency at short or open circuit provides low conversion loss.
The embedding impedances at various frequencies can be opti-
mized with HFSS by varying LO backshort position, suspended
stripline length between RF and LO waveguides and position of
RF short presented by the suspended stripline channel from the
diode plane. Higher harmonics of LO have not been considered
here due to memory limitation of workstation. One can get
fairly accurate results even if the higher order harmonics of LO
are not considered. This statement can be justified because at
higher harmonics the diode parasitic capacitance will behave
almost as a short circuit so the effect of the embedding imped-
ance of the mixer model at the higher harmonics on mixer con-
version loss can be neglected. Once the full-wave simulation is
complete, the five-port generalized S-parameters are normalized
with respect to 50 X and are imported to circuit simulator like
Agilent advanced design system (ADS) [10] to perform nonlin-
ear analysis. Diodes with nonlinear model are attached at the
corresponding lumped ports. The nonlinear diode model parame-
ters obtained from manufacturer are used and are listed in
Table 1. RF and LO ports are assigned with appropriate power
and corresponding port impedances. The RF and LO port impe-
dances have been taken as 400 X and 472 X, respectively, and
IF port is terminated with 50 X. Conversion loss of 5–8 dB for
þ10 dBm LO power in whole RF band and LO-IF and LO-RF
TABLE 1 Diode Parameters Used in Simulation
Is g u Rs Cjo M Eg
9.5  10 14
A 1.15 0.85 V 5X 0.02 pF 0.5 1.42 V
587

Figure 4 Simulated and measured conversion loss
isolations greater that 35 dB and 49 dB, respectively, have been
achieved in simulation. Simulated VSWR at all ports are better than
2.0. The measured conversion loss is 6–8 dB for þ10 dBm LO power
in whole RF band. The measured LO-IF and LO-RF isolations are
greater than 40 dB and 45 dB, respectively. Simulated and measured
conversion losses are shown in Figure 4. The agreement of the simu-
lated and measured results is fairly good. Table 2 summarizes the
simulated and measured results. The fabricated prototype mixer
shown in Figure 5, used for demonstration of the design, was preci-
sion machined from aluminum and measures 30  25  22 mm3.
5. CONCLUSIONS
A broadband single balanced waveguide mixer at K-band has
been developed. The mixer configuration is of crossbar type and
is implemented in suspended stripline circuit integrated with RF
and LO waveguides. The mixer has wide IF bandwidth with
fixed LO frequency. The Mixer has been simulated, fabricated,
and measured. Simulation and measured results agrees well. The
measured conversion loss across the whole band is 6–8 dB, and
LO-IF and LO-RF port isolations are greater than 40 dB and 45
dB, respectively. This mixer design approach can also be
applied to design broadband mixer at higher frequency bands.
This mixer will be used in broadband communication systems.
TABLE 2 Simulated and Measured Results of Mixer
Simulated Measured
Conversion Loss (dB) 5–8 6–8
LO-IF Isolation (dB) >35 >40
LO-RF Isolation (dB) >49 >45
RF-IF Isolation (dB) >30 >28
RF VSWR <2.0 <2.1
Figure 5 Fabricated prototype mixer
588 MICROWAVE AND OPTICAL TECHNOLOGY LETTERS / Vol. 53, No. 3, March 2011
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author is thankful to circuit integration division for assembly
of diodes on the mixer circuit. The author also like to thank me-
chanical division for precision machining of the mixer mount.
REFERENCES
1. A. Hislop and R.T. Kihm, A broad-Band 40–60 GHz balanced mixer,
IEEE Trans Microwave Theory Tech MTT 24 (1976), 63–64.
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GHz broadband mixer, IEEE Trans Microwave Theory Tech MTT
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6. S.A. Mass, Microwave mixers, 2nd ed., Artech House, Norwood,
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7. B. Bhat and S.K. Koul, Analysis, design and applications of fin
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8. Ansoft Corporation, Ansoft high frequency structure simulator
(HFSS), Version 11, 2010 Ansoft Corporation, USA.
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V
C 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
DESIGN OF AIRCRAFT ON-GLASS
ANTENNAS FOR FM RADIO
COMMUNICATIONS
Gangil Byun,1 Woojoon Kang,2 Younggi Kim,3
and Hosung Choo1
1
School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Hongik University,
72-1 Sangsu-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul 121-791, Korea;
Corresponding author: hschoo@hongik.ac.kr
2
Car Infotainment Research Department, LG electronics Inc., 19-1
Cheongho-ri, Jinwi-myeon, Pyengtaek-si, Gyeonggi-do 451-713,
Korea
3
KHP System Department, Korea Aerospace Industries, LTD., 802
Yucheon-ri, Sacheon-si, Gyeongsangnam-do 664-710, Korea
Received 14 June 2010
ABSTRACT: This letter proposes an on-glass antenna for FM radio
communications on the aircraft. We apply a multiloop structure to
obtain a high-radiation gain with broad matching characteristics. The
proposed antenna is designed to imitate the shape of the window frame
to minimize disruption to the pilot’s visual field. The measurement shows
an average bore-sight gain of 13.4 dBi and a half-power matching
bandwidth of 52% in the FM radio band. V C 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Microwave Opt Technol Lett 53:588–590, 2011; View this article at
wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.25779
Key words: on-glass; antenna; aircraft
1. INTRODUCTION
Pole-type antennas and blade-type antennas have been widely
used for FM radio communications in various types of vehicles.
These antennas generally have low durability and high-
DOI 10.1002/mop