Continue to Site

Welcome to EDAboard.com

Welcome to our site! EDAboard.com is an international Electronics Discussion Forum focused on EDA software, circuits, schematics, books, theory, papers, asic, pld, 8051, DSP, Network, RF, Analog Design, PCB, Service Manuals... and a whole lot more! To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

Upconverting a 20 GHz signal to 28 GHz

Status
Not open for further replies.

wesmonty

Newbie level 6
Joined
May 15, 2018
Messages
12
Helped
0
Reputation
0
Reaction score
0
Trophy points
1
Activity points
180
Hello,

I need to convert a ~20 GHz signal to ~28 GHz and am looking for some advice.

I first thought of using a mixer and taking the sum product from the 20 GHz signal and an LO of 8 GHz. Is this possible? From the searches I have done so far it seems I would struggle to find a mixer with these frequency ranges on its ports, not to mention the cost!

An alternative solution I thought of might be to first divide the ~20 GHz signal down and then put it through a x3 multplier.

Any feedback or alternative suggestions would be appreciated.

Cheers.
 


You can also consider to realize this device with discrete components.It's not possible to find a appropriate mixer at that band with a reasonable cost.
 

    wesmonty

    Points: 2
    Helpful Answer Positive Rating
However you go about this it is unlikely to be a cheap solution. For a mixer you could use a MiniCircuits MDB-44H, $11 each with MOQ of 20, expensive if you only need 1.
Use 20GHz as the local oscillator or the spurious outputs will be terrible; they will not be too good any way. You will need a good filter to reject the 3rd and 4th harmonic of the 8GHz input. If the 20GHz signal contains amplitude inforation then depending on the frequency range you want to cover you may have your work cut out removing the spurs
Dividing and trippling wold work if the signals are just cw, but finding a 20GHz divide by 2 may be OK, I've not looked. A trippler with 30GHz O/P will be more difficult, again I've not looked, but it will be expensive. The device BigBoss found was a doubler much easier to find.
You could make a trippler, but unless you can use chip and wire assembly I doubt the performance will be very good. Beam lead diodes if you can still get them may work.
 

    wesmonty

    Points: 2
    Helpful Answer Positive Rating
What is the exact meaning of "convert a ~20 GHz signal to ~28 GHz"? Do you want to translate any kind of modulation of the 20 GHz signal to 28 Ghz? Or is it intended as a frequency reference? If so, what are the parameters? Otherwise, there's no advantage of utilizing the 20 GHz signal. Better design a 28 GHz synthesizer generator.
 

    wesmonty

    Points: 2
    Helpful Answer Positive Rating
Thanks for the responses.

I perhaps should have fleshed out my initial post some more. My problem is this: I wish to do end-to-end testing of a pair of up and downcoverters but the output frequency from my upconverter is too low for the downconverter. I will need to preserve the modulation of the 20 GHz signal as well.
 


I have recently received a news from MiniCircuit.It may help you..
Thanks, BigBoss. I am using xmicrowave already so that is convenient.

My signal generator only goes up to 30 GHz. Would there be any issues with me putting a 24 GHz signal from this through a doubler to give the 48 GHz LO for 48-20=28 GHz? This looks like it would do the trick and seems to have good fundamental suppression:

https://www.markimicrowave.com/Assets/datasheets/MMD-2060L.pdf
 
Last edited:

I'm not sure 48 GHz LO Signal Power Level will be sufficient to drive the Mixer.. That's hard..
 

as stated, if you use a X3 multiplier, it will strip off some types of modulation.

a mixer is the common way to upconvert.

here is one:

looks like it is set up for the LO to be 20 ghz, and the IF to be 8 ghz, and the output would be 28 Ghz.
I wonder if you can inject the high power into the IF port (i.e. 15 dbm of 8 ghz) and have the 20 Ghz signal be low power (say 0 dBm) and it still upconvert efficiency. that would eliminate the need for an LO drive amplifier at 20 Ghz.

these are available on evaluation boards, with coax connectors, if you want to play with one.

i would also look at the usual suspects, like Marki Microwave, etc, for other mixer examples

you also will need some sort of highpass filter, or bandpass filter, to eliminate the LO leakage, and the unwanted lower sideband.
 
Last edited:

Status
Not open for further replies.

Part and Inventory Search

Welcome to EDABoard.com

Sponsor

Back
Top