Microwave mixing circuit and down-converter

• US 6,178,319 B1
• Filed: 09/24/1998
• Issued: 01/23/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 09/26/1997
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Kashima, Yukiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Kuntz, Curtis A.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ramakrishnaiah, Melur
• Application Number:
  US09/159,795
• Time in Patent Office: 852 Days
• Field of Search: 455/323, 455/325, 455/330, 455/333, 455/318, 455/293, 327/105
• US Class Current: 455/323
• CPC Class Codes: H03D 9/0683 using a combination of bipolar transistors and field effect transistors

Abstract

A microwave mixing circuitry has a plurality of microwave signal input terminals, a local oscillator for outputting a local oscillation signal for the purpose of generating an intermediate frequency signal from the microwave signal input by the microwave signal input terminals, and a plurality of field effect transistors (“FET”) for frequency converting. The FET gates are input with the microwave signal input from microwave signal input terminals. The FET drains are input with an output of the local oscillator. A plurality of gate voltage control circuitries control gate voltages of the FETs thereby causing one of the FETs to perform nonlinear operation while turning off another of FETs at the same time. An intermediate frequency signal output terminal outputs the intermediate frequency signal produced by the nonlinear operation of one of the FETs.

Claims

1. Microwave mixing circuitry comprising:

a plurality of separate microwave signal input terminals each for receiving a horizontally polarized wavesignal and a vertically polarized wave signal, repsectively;

local oscillator for geneating a local oscillation signal;

a plurality of mixing circuitries for mixing each of said horizontally polarized wave signal and said vertically polarized wave signal, said mixing circuitries include field effect transistors (“

FETs”

) having gates coupled to said microwave signal input terminals, and drains which are coupled to said local oscillator;

a plurality of control circuitries for enabling operation of one of said mixing circuitries while preventing operation of another of said mixing circuitries to produce an intermediate frequency signal; and

an intermediate frequency signal output terminal for outputting the intermediate frequency signal produced by the operation of one of said mixing circuitries.

2. The microwave mixing circuitry as recited in claim 1, wherein each of said control circuitries includes a transistor having a collector which is coupled with a gate of one of said FETs, an emitter which is coupled with a drain of said one of said FETs and a base which is coupled with a bias selection circuitry for supplying a bias voltage to the base.

3. The microwave mixing circuitry as recited in claim 2, wherein said bias selection circuitry causes one of said FETs to perform nonlinear operation and another of said FETs to turn off by a magnitude of electrical potential being applied to the base of said transistor.

4. The microwave mixing circuitry as recited in claim 3, wherein there are two of said transistors, and said bias selection circuitry comprises two stages of comparators, an output of a first stage thereof is input to the base of one of said transistors and an output of a second stage thereof is input to the base of the other of said transistors.

5. The microwave mixing circuitry as recited in claim 1, wherein a Wilkinson type divider is provided between the drain of each of said FETs and said intermediate frequency signal output terminal.

6. The microwave mixing circuitry as recited in claim 1, said microwave mixing circuitry included in a down converter, said down converter further comprising a plurality of probes coupled to said input terminals for converting the input microwave signal into a transversal electromagnetic mode wave (“

TEM wave”

), wherein a low-noise amplifier is coupled to each of said plurality of probes.

7. The microwave mixing circuitry as recited in claim 1, said microwave mixing circuitry included in a down converter, said down converter further comprising a plurality of waveguide input ports corresponding to different signal sources, a plurality of probes coupled to said input terminals for converting the microwave signal input from each of said plurality of waveguide input ports into TEM wave, and a low-noise amplifier coupled to each of said plurality of probes.

8. The microwave mixing circuitry as recited in claim 7, wherein said down converter is further comprising a selection circuitry for switching on or off the outputs of said plurality of low-noise amplifiers.

9. The microwave mixing circuitry as recited in claim 8, wherein said selection circuitry selects a polarization according to a first input selection signal and selects a satellite by switching on or off nonlinear operation of said FET according to a second input selection signal.

10. The microwave mixing circuitry as recited in claim 9 further comprising a band-pass filter circuitry for separating said second input selection signal and a detection circuitry for detecting the separated signal by said band-pass filter circuitry.

11. A microwave mixing circuitry with a couple of microwave input signals comprising:

(a) a couple of microwave signal input terminals each for receiving one of said microwave input signals,

(b) a local oscillator for outputting a microwave oscillation signal,

(c) a couple of field-effect transistors (“

FETs”

) for mixing said microwave input signals with said microwave oscillation signal,

(d) a control circuitry for switching a first FET of said FETs to operative state and switching a second FET of said FETs to inoperative state,

(e) an intermediate frequency signal output terminal for outputting an intermediate frequency signal produced by said first FET,

wherein said each microwave input signal and said microwave oscillation signal are fed into the gate and the drain of said FETs respectively, and wherein said control circuitry supplies to each gate of FETs a bias voltage which enables one of said FETs to be switched to operative state and the other of said FETs to be switched to inoperative state.

12. The microwave mixing circuitry as recited in claim 11, wherein said control circuitry comprises a couple of transistors and a base bias circuitry coupled with said transistors, and wherein each collector and each emitter of said transistors are coupled with each gate and each drain of said FETs respectively.

13. The microwave mixing circuitry as recited in claim 12, wherein said base bias circuitry changes dc voltages applied to the bases of said transistors in order for said transistors to switch between conductive state and non-conductive state.

14. The microwave mixing circuitry as recited in claim 12, wherein said base bias circuitry is comprised of a two-stage cascaded comparator, and the output voltages of the first stage and the second stage of said comparator are applied to the bases of said transistors respectively.

15. The microwave mixing circuitry as recited in claim 11, wherein a Wilkinson-type divider is provided between the drains of said FETs and said intermediate frequency signal output terminal.

16. The microwave mixing circuitry as recited in claim 11, wherein two orthogonal polarized microwave input signals (H1 and V1) are transmitted from a first signal sources (S1), guided into a waveguide (W1), mode-converted by two orthogonal waveguide probes (P1 and Q1), fed into low-noise amplifiers (L1 and M1) and one of said signals (H1 and V1) is applied to a first terminal of said microwave input terminals, and wherein other two orthogonal polarized microwave input signals (H2 and V2) are transmitted from a second signal sources (S2), guided into a waveguide (W2), mode-converted by two orthogonal waveguide probes (P2 and Q2), fed into low-noise amplifiers (L2 and M2) and one of said signals (H2 and V2) is applied to a second terminal of said microwave input terminals.

17. The microwave mixing circuitry as recited in claim 16, wherein said control circuitry switches one of said low-noise amplifiers (L1 and M1) to operative state and the other of L1 and M1 to inoperative state by controlling dc supply voltages of L1 and M1, and wherein said control circuitry switches one of said low-noise amplifiers (L2 and M2) to operative state and the other of L2 and M2 to inoperative state by controlling dc supply voltages of L2 and M2.

18. The microwave mixing circuitry as recited in claim 11, wherein one of said microwave input signal (H1 and V1) are fed into said FETs by using a first control signal which is fed into said control circuitry in order to switch one of said low-noise amplifiers (L1 and M1) to operative state and the other of said low-noise amplifiers (L1 and M1) to inoperative state and one of said microwave input signals (H2 and V2) are fed into said FETs by using a first control signal which is fed into said control circuitry in order to switch one of said low-noise amplifiers (L2 and M2) to operative state and the other of said low-noise amplifiers (L2 and M2) to inoperative state, and

wherein one arbitrary signal of said microwave input signals (H1, V1, H2, V2) is selectively down-converted to an intermediate frequency signal by using a second control signal fed into said control circuit in order to switch one of said FETs to operative state and the other of said FETs to inoperative state.

19. The microwave mixing circuitry as recited in claim 18, wherein said control circuitry includes a band-pass filter circuitry which filters a time-varying signal from the control signals fed into said control circuitry and a detector circuitry which produces a dc signal from said time-varying signal.