SiGe BiCMOS Process Spawns Frequency Converters

Hittite Microwave Corp. has launched seven new silicon germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS mixer integrated circuits (ICs) for broadband frequency upconversion and downconversion applications from 0.7 to 3.9 GHz. Each IC incorporates a double-balanced mixer and a local-oscillator (LO) amplifier that combine to provide third-order-intercept (IP3) performance as good as +35 dBm when operating with only 0-dBm LO drive. Models include the 0.7-to-1.0-GHz HMC684LP4E, 1.7-to-2.2-GHz HMC685LP4E, 2.0-to-2.7-GHz HMC688LP4E, and 3.1-to3.9-GHz HMC666LP4E. All four have single-ended LO and RF ports and differential intermediate-frequency (IF) ports with range of DC to 500 MHz. The conversion loss is as low as 7 dB with as much as 30-dB port-to-port (LO-to-RF and LO-to-IF) isolation. The frequency converters are supplied in RoHS-compliant 4 x 4 mm QFN packages and operate from a single +5-VDC supply.