ADE-1 DBM

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ADE-1 Passive (Diode) Double Balanced Mixer

Overall Summary: The ADE-1 DBM from Minicircuits is a low cost, good performance "Level 7" passive mixer. It is well suited for HF operation and has good port isolation and high IP3in = +15 dBm for its relatively low Local Oscillator (LO) power drive requirement of +7 dBm (5 mW). Although it is a Surface Mount Device (SMD) it is sufficiently large to be placed easily on the underside of PCB's or Veroboard, or just "dead anted" on plain copper PCB.

 

 

 

Notes;

Although RF and IF impedance match accuracy is reasonable (relative to 50 Ohms), the LO VSWR is usually poor and variable with LO drive.
LO to RF isolation is excellent at HF ( ~65 dB). This implies -58 dBm LO to RF leakage @ +7 dBm LO drive. The maximum PIF (Audio) input drive will be about PIF = 0 dBm for 1 dB conversion gain compression, i.e. PRF ~ -6 dBm (5 dB loss + 1 dB compression) or 52 dB signal to LO leakage ratio. 
However, operating a DBM up to it's 1 dB compression level will result in significant RF splatter (3rd order intermodulation) so 5 to 10 dB of drive back-off is needed to improve overall linearity. This will reduce RF signal to LO carrier leakage ratio to -47 to -42 dB.
This ratio is more than adequate for SSB and will not significantly detract from the required RF SSB output signal energy.

Note: The 3 order intermodulation (two tone) product ratio can be predicted from dPdB  = 2 × [IP3in - PIF] - providing the device is at least 5 dB below compression. This predicts adjacent sideband (two tone test) energy will be dPdB  = 2 × [+15 dBm - -5dBm] = 40 dB for IP3IF = +15 dBm.

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