Patent ID: 7616937

Claim:
A subharmonic mixer, comprising: an amplification unit comprising at least one pair of amplification devices connected in parallel to amplify an input signal; and a mixing unit configured to mix the amplified signal with local oscillation signals from local oscillators, wherein the mixing unit performs switching over the respective amplification devices and comprises at least first, second, third and fourth pairs of switching devices connected in parallel, the first and second pairs of switching devices being connected in parallel with each other and performing switching over one amplification device, and the third and fourth pairs of switching devices being connected in parallel with each other and performing switching over the other amplification device, and the switching devices of each of the first, second, third and fourth pairs being supplied with a local oscillation signal having a different phase respectively, and two switching devices forming each of the first, second, third and fourth pairs being connected in parallel and supplied with local oscillation signals having a 180° phase difference therebetween, and the first and second pairs having sources connected to each other and the third and fourth pairs having sources connected to each other, and DC bias being directly applied to the sources of the first, second, third and fourth pairs of switching devices between the amplification unit and the mixing unit, wherein each of the switching devices of the mixing unit comprises a PMOSFET.