The development of a millimeter-wave unbalanced frequency tripler based on the nonlinear characteristics of planar Schottky varactors is presented. The entire module is designed by hybrid integration. A frequency multiplier circuit model was established to reflect the influence of diode parameters and the impedance matching on the multiplier in different frequency bands. The effect of junction imbalance on the output power of the frequency multiplier was investigated and the multiplier was improved based on the basic design. The addition of a cut microstrip stub in the improved diode unit reduced the impact of a power imbalance on frequency multiplier performance. The characteristics of the multiplier circuit were analyzed by the full-wave electromagnetic simulation of the three-dimensional structure and the harmonic balance simulation of the circuit. Test results showed that the peak output power of the improved frequency tripler was 12.6 mW at 277 GHz with an input power of 200 mW, an effective 12% improvement over the basic design.
Keywords: Schottky varactor; cut microstrip stub; frequency tripler; junction imbalance.