PIERS Proceedings, Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA, March 2730, 2012

602

Miniaturized Multilayered Bandpass Filter Using Microstrip

Hairpin Resonator for C-band Application
C. Y. Wong and K. M. Lum
School of Science and Technology, SIM University, Singapore

Abstract This paper presents a miniaturized multilayered bandpass filter (BPF) using Ushaped and W-shaped hairpin resonators. The proposed BPF consisted of five microstrip hairpin
resonators arranged on two separate conductor layers and being placed by design to control the
vertical and horizontal coupling effect in order to obtain the desired bandpass filter performance.
Resonator 1, 2 and 3 are arranged on the top conductor layer of the substrate. Resonator 4 and 5
are buried between the first and second substrate with a 180 degree change in the orientation of
the position. In addition, the buried U-shaped resonators are attached together which result in
the implementation of a unique W-shape resonator structure. 50 microstrip input and output
feedlines are joined together with resonator 1 and 3 on the top conductor layer respectively.
The proposed BPF is fabricated on two FR4 substrates with a dielectric constant of 4.7, loss
tangent of 0.027 and thickness of 0.8 mm. Epoxy adhesive loss is used to laminate the two
substrates collectively. The dimension of the prototyped BPF is 33 mm by 21 mm. The best
matching measured return loss S11 is observed at 5.18 GHz with a value less than 15 dB. The
corresponding passband response S21 is approximately 3 dB with an upper and lower stopband
attenuation of more than 10 dB/GHz. Both simulation and measurement results are presented
and discussed.
1. INTRODUCTION

Communication technologies such as wireless and radar systems require high performances bandpass filters in microwave frequency spectrum. The usage of hairpin resonator filter in designs is
becoming popular because of the ease of design and relatively eases of fabrication. Typically, hairpin resonators are modified from parallel coupled lines, where the half-wavelength resonator is bent
into a U-shape pattern, thus making it more compact [13]. To suit the demands of compact
modern wireless mobile communication, further reduction of the filter dimension is required by
implementing multilayer substrates configuration. In addition, multilayer technique also improves
the control of coupling coefficient by allowing gaps to be inserted between resonators positioned on
different conductor layers. In this paper, the overall size of the proposed filter is smaller as compared with existing designs [4]. The filter seems particularly suitable for integration with multilayer
transceiver antenna modules [58] and useful in designing pulse or waveform for mission critical
applications such as indoor localization [912].
2. BANDPASS FILTER DESIGN AND CONCEPT

As illustrated in Fig. 1, the BPF comprises five hairpin resonators being separated into two conductor layers. The resonators are placed strategically to adjust the coupling effect in order to
obtain the desired bandpass filter performance. Fig. 2 depicted the multilayer configuration of the
proposed BPF. Resonator 1, 2 and 3 were arranged on the conductor layer 1. Resonator 4 and 5
were joined together to form a unique W-shaped pattern and was placed on conductor layer 2. A
50 microstrip feed line is integrated with resonator 1 and 3 to create the input and output port.
The design specifications of the proposed BPF are detailed in Table 1.
Table 1: Design specifications.
Parameters
Center Frequency, fo
Return loss, S11
Passband Insertion loss, S21
Passband Bandwidth at 10 dB
Stopband Attenuation

Values
4 GHz
< 20 dB
> 3 dB
500 MHz
> 10 dB/GHz

Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, KL, MALAYSIA, March 2730, 2012 603

Figure 1: Top view topology of proposed BPF and key dimensions.

Figure 2: Multilayer configuration of proposed BPF.

Figure 3: Equivalent -network circuit of the conventional hairpin resonator.

The equivalent circuit of a conventional hairpin resonator is shown in Fig. 3. Using the following
Equations (1)(3), the value of components C1 , C2 and L can be calculated. The equivalent circuit
of the proposed BPF is presented in Fig. 4.
1 cot(a la )
Zo sin(a la )
Zo sin(a la )
L =

Ze Zo
c2 =
2Ze Zo cot(c Lc )
c1 =

(1)
(2)
(3)

3. BANDPASS FILTER SIMULATED AND MEASURED RESULTS

The bandpass filter is simulated using Agilent Advanced Design System. As observed in Fig. 5
the simulated return loss S11 is best matched at 4.16 GHz with a value of 31.7 dB. The passband insertion loss S21 is about 0 dB. The lower and upper stopband attenuation is approximately
10 dB/GHz and 18 dB/GHz respectively.

PIERS Proceedings, Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA, March 2730, 2012

604

Two FR4 substrates with dielectric constant of 4.7 and a thickness of 0.8 mm each, were used
to prototyped the proposed BPF. The two substrates were attached together using a fine layer of
epoxy adhesive, Nitto Denko double-coated adhesive tape (No. 500) with a thickness of 0.17 mm.
The fabricated BPF is shown in Fig. 6 and measurement is done using network analyzer. The
overall dimension is 33 mm by 21 mm.
The measured response of the BPF is presented in Fig. 7. The measured return loss S11 is
below 10 dB from 5.09 GHz to 5.26 GHz. The best matching frequency is observed at 5.18 GHz
with a S11 value of 17 dB. The passband insertion loss is 3 dB. Lower and upper attenuation is
17 dB/GHz and 12 dB/GHz respectively. A comparison is made between the modeled and practical
results as detailed in Table 2.

Figure 4: Equivalent circuit of proposed BPF.

Figure 5: Simulated results of proposed bandpass

filter.

(a)

(b)

Figure 6: Fabricated proposed bandpass filter. (a) Resonator 1, 2 and 3. (b) Resonator 4 and 5.

Figure 7: Measured results of proposed BPF.

Table 2: Comparison of simulated and measured results for bandpass filters.
Parameters
Operating Frequency, fo (GHz)
Return loss, S11 (dB)
Passband Insertion loss, S21 (dB)
Passband Bandwidth at 10 dB (MHz)
Lower Stopband Attenuation (dB/GHz)
Upper Stopband Attenuation (dB/GHz)

Simulated
4.16
31.7
0
505
10
18

Measurement
5.18
17
3
595
17
12

Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, KL, MALAYSIA, March 2730, 2012 605
4. CONCLUSION

A multilayered hairpin bandpass filter operating at C-Band has been proposed and validated via
simulation and measurement results. It is apparent that close resemble exists between the simulation and measurement results. The variance in the S-parameters response may be due to the
mis-alignment between the resonators on conductor layer 1 and 2. The proposed configuration
seems particularly suitable for integration with multilayer transceiver antenna modules [58] and
localization applications [912].
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