A novel semiconductor device is provided. The semiconductor device includes a mixer circuit and a bias circuit. The mixer circuit includes a voltage-to-current conversion portion, a current switch portion, and a current-to-voltage conversion portion. The bias circuit includes a bias supply portion and a first transistor. The voltage-to-current conversion portion includes a second transistor and a third transistor. The bias supply portion has a function of outputting a bias voltage to be supplied to a gate of the second transistor and a gate of the third transistor. One of a source and a drain of the first transistor is electrically connected to the gate of the second transistor and the gate of the third transistor. The first transistor is turned off when the bias voltage is supplied, and the first transistor is turned on when the supply of the bias voltage is stopped.

A frequency multiplier includes an input section having inputs to receive an input signal having an input frequency, a mixer section, and an output section magnetically coupled to the input section and generating an output signal in response to the input signal. The mixer section may be coupled to the input section by a common mode node forming a path for a common mode current to flow to the mixer section and be magnetically coupled to the common mode node. The input section may generate a signal current, and the mixer section may be magnetically coupled to the input section and be directly capacitively coupled to the input section through a capacitor in a signal current path. The mixer section may have differential inputs capacitively coupled to the input section and also be coupled to the input section through a current path. A current helper section may be coupled to the current path.

Noise parameters are used to characterize noise performance of linear devices, such as amplifiers. Such noise parameters have not been used for frequency conversion devices, such as mixers. Direct measurements of single-side-band noise figures are accurately represented by the measured noise parameters, which fully characterize the noise figure of the mixers for all harmonic impedance loading conditions. Each harmonic side band of frequencies contributing noise to the mixer output is associated with a set of noise parameters. A measurement method for extracting the noise parameters is described.

A combined mixer and filter circuitry is disclosed. The combined mixer and filter circuitry comprises a mixer comprising a first input, a second input and an output. The combined mixer and filter circuitry further comprises a filter comprising an active inductor and a first capacitor. The active inductor comprises a transistor having a first terminal, a second terminal and a third terminal and a resistor connected between the first terminal of the transistor and a voltage potential. The first capacitor is connected between the third terminal and a signal ground and the second terminal of the transistor is connected to the second input of the mixer.

Mixers with improved linearity are disclosed. A diode or FET ring mixer is implemented with at least one parallel shunt element coupled with the ring mixer, the shunt element providing shunt to a diode or FET, for example, to reduce the effect of nonlinear or off resistance and/or capacitance. Linearity, isolation, symmetry, even order harmonics of the ring mixer, or any combination thereof can be improved as a result. The linearity of the ring mixer with parallel shunt resistors can be further improved by adding series resistors in the ring according to certain embodiments.

An electronic circuit includes adjustment units configured to receive a same oscillating signal having a predetermined frequency and to adjust a phase and an amplitude of the oscillating signal to produce output oscillating signals, coupling points configured to supply the output oscillating signals produced by the adjustment units to antennas, couplers provided in one-to-one correspondence with outputs of the adjustment units, equal-length lines sharing the same length and extending from the couplers, respectively, mixer circuits coupled to the equal-length lines, respectively, each of the mixer circuits being configured to receive a same reference oscillating signal having the predetermined frequency and a corresponding one of the output oscillating signals, and a control circuit configured to cause the adjustment units to adjust at least one of the phase and the amplitude in response to direct-current components in outputs of the mixer circuits.

A switch circuit, a mixer, and an electronic device, where the switch circuit includes a first metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) transistor, a second MOS transistor, a third MOS transistor, and a fourth MOS transistor, both a gate of the first MOS transistor and a gate of the fourth MOS transistor are connected to a first port, and both a gate of the second MOS transistor and a gate of the third MOS transistor are connected to a second port; and a lead between the gate of the first MOS transistor and the first port, a lead between the gate of the second MOS transistor and the second port, a lead between the gate of the third MOS transistor and the second port, and a lead between the gate of the fourth MOS transistor and the first port all have an equal length. In this way, linearity is relatively high.

A FET based double balanced mixer (DBM) that exhibits good conversion gain and IIP3 values and provides improved linearity and wide bandwidth. In one embodiment, a first balun is configured to receive a local oscillator (LO) signal and generate two balanced LO signals that are coupled to two corresponding opposing nodes of a four-node FET ring. A second balun is configured to pass an RF signal on the unbalanced side. The FET ring includes at least four FETs connected as branches of a ring, with the source of each FET connected to the drain of a next FET in the ring. Each FET is preferably fabricated as, or configured as, a low threshold voltage device having its gate connected to its drain, which causes the FET to operate as a diode, but with the unique characteristic of having close to a zero turn-on voltage.

A buffer circuit includes a first differential amplifier, second differential amplifier, third differential amplifier, and mixer. The first differential amplifier generates a positive differential signal and a negative differential signal based on an input signal and a reference voltage signal. The second differential amplifier generates a first signal based on the positive differential signal and the negative differential signal. The third differential amplifier generates a second signal having a different phase from the first signal based on the positive differential signal and the negative differential signal. The mixer outputs a signal, generated by mixing the first signal and the second signal, as an output signal.

A configurable passive mixer is described herein. According to one exemplary embodiment, the passive mixer comprises a clock generator, a controller, and a plurality of passive mixer cores connected in parallel. The clock generator comprises a local oscillator drive unit for each passive mixer core. The controller varies an effective transistor size of the passive mixer by separately configuring each of the passive mixer cores to enable/disable each passive mixer core. For example, the controller may selectively enable one or more of the passive mixer cores to vary the effective transistor width of the passive mixer. As the performance requirements and/or the operating communication standard change, the controller may re-configure each passive mixer core.