Abstract
This paper presents a novel 24/36-GHz double conversion heterodyne architecture for IEEE 802.15.3c (60-GHz) applications. The selection of the first local oscillator frequency as 36-GHz gives rise to an intermediate frequency that yields significant cost advantage by reusing the 24-0Hz architecture adopted by the automotive industry for both the receiver and transmitter second stage frequency translation. The topology is symmetrical about the transmitter and receiver sections thus taking care of mismatch issues at the circuit level implementation. The system level simulation shows high image rejection ratio and low requirement on image rejection low noise amplifier (LNA) and mixer design. The proposed architecture reduces the influence of harmonics and sub-harmonics during the mixer phase and exhibits less inter-modulation interference.