Proceedings of Asia-Pacifc Microwave Conference 2010 THIG-23

P LODQCl I0C blOQDH0 WICtOSltIQ H0QSS IlCt \SIH_

_UtlCt-VCCH_lH bHOtlC0 LOUQC0-IHCS
Xun Luo1, Huizhen Qian 1, Jian-Guo Ma2, and Kiat Seng Yeo3
University of Electronic Science and Technology of China!, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610054, China
Tianjin University2, Tianjin, 300072, China
Nanyang Technological University (NTU)3, Singapore, 635798
08000l- compact microstrip bandpass flter using quarter
wavelength (>4) shorted coupled-lines is presented in this paper.
The shorted symmetrical coupled-line using two >4 resonators is
employed to introduce te fundamental resonant modes to meet
the limits of the passband operation. Besides, the shorted asym
metrical coupled-lines at both sides of te shorted symmetrical
coupled-line have two functions: 1) harmonic suppression in the
stopband, 2) bandwidth enhancement in the passband. The design
is then verifed by experiment, which exhibits a good insertion
loss better than 2.11 dB, and a wide stopband from 2.58 to 10.8
LM2 with a satisfactory rejection of more than 20 dB.
Nd0X 0D8-Bandpass flter, harmonic suppression, quarter
wavelength (>4) resonator, shorted coupled-line, wide stopband.
I. INTRODUCTION
Bandpass flters with high performance are essential in
modern wireless communication applications. Diferent design
methodologies of the realizations have been proposed in the
literature [1-8]. Paticularly, the microstrip parallel coupled
lines structure has drawn much attention and is widely used
since its simple design procedure, low cost and easy fabrica
tion. However, unwanted harmonic passbands will appear to
make a narrower stopband. Therefore, various methods such as
using split ring resonators [3], periodically coupled microstip
lines [4], open-stubs and spurlines [5], stepped impedance
resonators [6], and resonators with separate electric/magnetic
coupling path [7] have been introduced in the design of
microstip bandpass flters, which can achieve the suppression
of spurious or shifting the second harmonic to a higher
frequency band.
In this paper, a compact microstrip bandpass flter with
a wide stopband is proposed using quater-wavelength (>J4)
shorted coupled-lines. The chaacteristics and network models
of the hybrid shorted coupled-lines structure are investigated
and discussed. The shorted symmetrical coupled-line is intro
duced to achieve the center resonance. Meanwhile, the shorted
asymmetrical coupled-line is employed to make additional
transmission zeros in the stopband to suppress the harmon
ics. Then, a microstrip flter is designed, implemented and
fabricated to demonstrate the principle and mechanism of the
hybrid shorted asymmetrical and symmetical coupled-lines
structure. Good simulated and measured results are achieved.
Specifcally, the fabricated flter achieves good rejection in the
frequency range about 4
.5610.
Copyright 2010 IEICE
(a) (b)
Z"I,2/O"
Fig. 1. (a) Shorted symmetrical coupled-line. (b) Shorted asymmet
rical coupled-line.
II. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SHORTED SYMMETRICAL
AND ASYMMETRICAL COUPLED-LINES
Fig. I(a) shows the structure of shorted symmetrical
coupled-line. As depicted in Fig. 2, the mixed electrical and
magnetic coupling effect exists between the shorted sym
metrical coupled-line. Each )/4 resonator resonates at W
o
_
l/,L
o
C
o
. Meanwhile, Cm and Lm are the mutual capaci
tance and inductance, respectively. The mutual capacitance and
inductance circuit on the top show in Fig. 2 can be represented
by the admittance-inverters J, JE, and JM. The total coupling
coeffcient k can be defned as [8]
_
_

JM =
Cm
_
L
o
_
1

W
o
C
o
W
o
C
o
C
o
Lm
(1)
here 1and denote the electric and magnetic coupling
coeffcients, respectively. 1and can be determined by the
equations as follow
. .
1
_
u
,
u
q
. . .
u
,
u
q -
W
m
W u
,
u
q
,

_
. . .
{
. .
}
u
,
u
q -
W
m
u
,

q
(2)
(3)
where Wm
_
l/,LmCm,
,, and u
q are the even
mode, odd-mode, and transmission zero frequency, respec
tively. Based on the circuit theory, the shorted symmetical
coupled-line can be represented as a J-inverter cascading
two identical ABCD-matrices (Le., ABCD
s
o
) at both sides,
where the ABCD
s
o
-parameters can be derived as
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A
s
o
_

o _

_
w
E
_
D
s
o (4)
W W
o
W W
o
C
o
m
a a a a

J
Fig. 2. Asynchronously tuned coupled resonator circuit and network
model with mixed electrical and magnetic coupling for the shorted
symmetrical coupled-line.
B
so
=
j

WOM
_

w wo
C
o
C
sO
= j

_
WO / WOM
_
_ ,
Wo w w wo
C
o
(5)
(6)
As such, the ABC D matrix of the shorted symmetrical
coupled-line can be determined as follow

A
c
s
s
B
s
s

A
so
B
sO
D
s
C
so
D
so
x
' , x A
so
B
so
jJ '
C
so
D
so
(7)
As shown in Fig. Ib, the shorted asymmetrical coupled
line provides the even-mode characteristic impedance of Z
oe
and electric length of B
e
, and the odd-mode characteristic
impedance and electric length of Z
oo
and B
o
, respectively.
The ABC D matrixes of the asymmetrical coupled-line can
be determined as [9]
A
a
=
_
ReR7 (ReYcl CO\Be - R7Y71 CO\B7)
Y
l 08CBe - Y7l 08CB7
(8)
(9)
(10)
(11)
S
A

I
I I, I I
I
I I, I I
I
I I. I I
I
I I, I I
I
I I, I I
I
I I, I I
- ".-__-_.-
P1 P2
A.asymmctrica|coup|cd-|inc S. symmctrica|coup|cd-|inc
'a)
Symmctrica|
coup|cd-|inc
|J
Fig. 3. (a) Confguration of the bandpass flter structure using
the hybrid shorted asymmetrical and symmetrical coupled-lines. (b)
Network model of the bandpass flter.
where Be and B7 are the electrical length of the two modes,
YeI. Ye2, Y71, and Y72 are the characteristic admittances of
asymmetrical coupled lines, Re and R7 are the ratio of the
voltages on the lines for the two normal modes, respectively.
III. SYNTHESIS OF THE WIDE STOPBAND MICROSTRIP
BANDPASS FILTER
Fig. 3(a) shows the confguration of the bandpass flter using
the hybrid )./4 shorted symmetical and asymmetrical coupled
lines structure. It consists of one shorted symmetrical coupled
line formed by line 2 and 3. Two pairs of lines 1 and 2,
lines 3 and 4 are employed as asymmetrical coupled-lines.
Meanwhile, the transmission lines 1 and 4 are employed as
the input/output (IO) ports (i.e., PI and P2).
The network model can be then obtained by using the
admittance-inverter as shown in Fig. 3(b). It can be separated
into three pats: a shorted symmetrical coupled-line in the
middle and two identical shorted asymmetrical coupled-lines
at both sides. As illustrated in Fig. 3(b), the shorted asym
metrical coupled-lines are represented by the UEs and -1 : 1
transformer. The transmission characteristics of the network in
Fig. 3(b) ae calculated by doing the matrix conversion from
ABC D matrix to the S-matrix. The ABC D matrix can be
obtained by cascading the ABC D matrixes of three parts as
shown in the following
(12)
To quantitatively verify the design concept highlighted
above, the full-wave EM simulator IE3D [10] is used. The
proposed flter is constructed on the RT/5880 with Er = 2.2
and h = 0.508 mm. Three cases are compared and studied in
this letter. Case (a) is the shorted symmetrical coupled-line
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0
1
10
,
.
..
' l I
. I' I

50
.
: :

.
. .

b0
| t

70
0 Z 4
Harmonics ol
1 and 2

.
,

,
......
. .... /
__
,

'

|
; .
ZPl
ZP2 ,1 'C (b)
~,11'C 1|
b b 10 1Z
1CQ1C1y 1?|
14
Fig. +. Simulated frequency responses of the shorted symmetrical
coupledline, asymmetrical coupledline, and proposed flter.
OH _ Pr 2

|nII. mm
Fig. 5. Layout of the proposed bandpass flter using /+ shorted
coupledlines. (d = +, h = !, /_ = 1, /_ = 13.12, / = 20.5, / = 1,
81 = 0.6, 82 = 0.28, u = 1, u_ = 0.6, u_ = 1.6).
structure in Fig. lea). The coupled-lines with characteristic
impedance Zl of 87.2Q and electric length (h of 90.4 degrees
at 2.4 GHz ae chosen. Case (b) is the shorted asymmetrical
coupled-line structure in Fig. l(b). The coupled-lines with
Zoo = 66.1WBo = 87.7 degrees and Zoe = 87.2Q/Be = 86.5
degrees at 2.4 GHz are chosen respectively. Case (c) is the
bandpass flter in Fig. 3(a). The results of three cases (a),
(b), and (c) corresponding to frequency response curves (a),
(b), and (c) in Fig. 4 respectively are compared. Curve (a)
in Fig. 4 shows that the odd-mode and even-mode resonant
frequencies PPI and PP2 could be allocated by the shorted
symmetical coupled-line at 2.3 and 2.5 GHz, respectively.
The second and third order harmonics have middle frequencies
at 7.2 and 12.0 GHz respectively. Two transmission zeros
ZPl and ZP2 ae generated by the asymmetrical coupled-line
structure demonstrated in Curve (b). As depicted in Curve
(c), the second order harmonics which overlap in ZP2 are
suppressed, and an additional zero appears aound ZPl which
leads to a good spurious passband performance. Specifcally,
with the advantage of the strong coupling effect from the
shorted asymmetrical coupled-lines, the bandwidth around the
fundamental resonant frequency is enhanced. Based on the
investigation among the above three cases, it is concluded that
10
'Z0

J0
C;
b0
10
Z0

J0
~
J
50
b0
0 .5 1.5 Z Z.5 J J.5
CQ1CD1y 12|
(a)

4
IBul
4.5 5
Z J 4 5 b 7 b 9 10 11
1CQ1C1y 1?|
(b)
Fig. 6. Measured and simulated frequency responses of the proposed
bandpass flter. (a) Insertion and retur loss. (b) Wideband response.
the fundamental resonant frequency to meet the limit of the
passband operation could be easily achieved by fnely adjusted
the shorted symmetrical coupled-line. In the meantime, the
shorted asymmetrical coupled-lines have two fnctions: 1) it
is able to achieve the high rejection and wide stopband through
the ZPl and ZP2 generation. 2) it provides the strong coupling
for bandwidth enhancement.
IV. SIMULATED AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The investigation above shows the operation principle of the
proposed flter structure. To achieve good passband return loss
and stopband rejection, the proposed flter structure is slightly
modifed and depicted in Fig. 5. S-parameters measurement
is performed using Agilent 5230A network analyzer over the
frequency range from 0.01 to 10 GHz. Fig. 6(a) demonstrates
the simulated and experimental insertion and return loss of the
proposed flter. The proposed flter exhibits a good bandpass
performance including a 3 dB fractional bandwidth of 6.54%
at the center frequency f
o
of 2.38 GHz, a minimum insertion
1144
loss of 2.11 dB, and a typical return loss better than 11 dB.
As shown in Fig. 6(b), good spurious suppression at second
hanonics is obtained due to two observed zeros at 4.19 and
7.26 GHz. The wide stopband from 2.53 to 10.8 GHz with a
good rejection level better than 20 dB is achieved. In addition,
the size of the flter amounts to 0.26 >.g by 0.18 >g, where
>.g is the microstrip guided wavelength on the substrate at the
center frequency of 2.38 GHz.
V. CONCLUSION
In this letter, a compact microstrip bandpass flter with a
wide stopband is proposed using the >/4 shorted coupled-lines.
The characteristics of the hybrid shorted coupled-lines and
the equivalent network model of the bandpass flter structure
are investigated. The proposed flter demonstrates the potential
for harmonic suppression with the assistance of the hybrid >/4
shorted symmetrical and asymmetrical coupled-lines structure.
Specifcally, the measured result of the fabricated flter exhibits
a very wide stopband up to 4.5610 with a typically hamonic
suppression more than 25.3 dB.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to thank the support fom the
National Science Foundation of China (NSFC: 60688101) and
National 111 program.
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