Design and realization of a 24 GHz receiver front-end in integrated quasi-planar technique.

Abstract

This thesis describes the design, realization and testing of an integrated millimeter wave receiver front-end in E-plane configuration. In particular, the combination and integration of a balanced mixer, two filters, and a local oscillator stabilized by a dielectric restorator are described. The following is a brief description of those three major components that constitute the receiver front-end. The heart of the mixer is a classical 180 degrees hybrid junction formed by the juxtaposition of unilateral fin-line and coplanar waveguide. Matching of the RF signal to the diodes is critical for good conversion loss. The receiver contains two filters. In order to ensure compatability with the mixer, the 24 GHz local oscillator was realized in such a way that the FET was also situated in the E-plane. The components have been realized on 10 mils thick RT-Duroid 5880 (dielectric constant $\in\sb{\rm r}$ = 2.22) suspended in the E-plane of a WR-42 waveguide. The receiver incorporates a 24.0 GHz oscillator (LO) and accepts an input radio frequency signal (RF) at 24.4 GHz with a bandwidth of 500 MHz. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)