Simulations of III-V NWFET Double-Balanced Gilbert Cells with an Improved Noise Model

III-V nanowire transistors might provide a mean for extending Moore’s law, by overcoming the scaling limitations ultimately facing planar silicon CMOS. These high frequency capable transistors with cut-off frequencies in the terahertz regime are suitable for radio communication. In this project an active double-balanced gilbert cell mixer consisting of nanowire field-effect transistors (NWFETs) was simulated in Cadence Virtuoso using a compact transistor model. The transistor model was extended to take flicker and thermal noise into account, in order to more accurately compare the mixers against state-of-the-art silicon CMOS implementations. The final mixer for 60 GHz showed much greater linearity (0.4 dBm 1 dB compression and 8.5 dBm IIP 3) than previously reported silicon CMOS counterparts. It exhibited a conversion gain of 3.47 dB, a N F DSB of 14.6 dB and a DC power consumption of 8.7 mW.Based on these findings the design requirements for suitable low noise amplifier was discussed