A Miniaturized Lumped Element Directional
Coupler with Parasitics Compensation
Mina Wahib and A.P. Freundorfer
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada
Emails: minawahib@hotmail.com, freund@queensu.ca
Abstract—This paper presents a miniaturized coupled line
directional coupler carefully designed in a lumped element con-
figuration. Due to the fact that all the parasitics (i.e. ohmic losses,
inductances and capacitances) were taken into consideration at
different stages of the design process, this resulted in a measured
response which is in very close agreement with the simulated
one. The measurements showed an input return loss and isolation
of 22.43 dB and 15.76 dB respectively at 1 GHz with a 10-dB
fractional bandwidth of almost 10.85%. The measured coupling
and thru coefficients are 3.48 dB and 4.01 dB respectively at the
same operating frequency. These values agreed quite well with
the ones from the electromagnetic simulations. The reduction in
the measured thru coefficient is mainly due to the added losses
of solders and co-axial connectors. A phase error of about 2.4◦
with respect to the expected 90◦ phase difference was noticed.
I. I NTRODUCTION
A quadrature coupler is a basic building block in various
communication systems. It can be used as a power divider
and a phase shifter at the same time to obtain the necessary
I/Q signals. However, the fundamental limitation of distributed
couplers is their frequency dependency. Generally for good
coupling performance, the length of a coupling section should
be a quarter of a wavelength at the center frequency [1].
Therefore at low RF frequencies, this will yield quite large
dimensions which can not cope with the level of miniatur-
ization electronic circuits have already reached. As a result
there is an increasing demand for size miniaturization. Many
researchers have already been concerned with the topic of
coupler miniaturization as in [2-9]. Although many miniatur-
ization techniques are available, the lumped element approach
has proven to be one of the most effective techniques. The
coupled line coupler proposed in this paper is based on
this approach. Although this coupler does not employ any
additional capacitive or inductive loadings, as in [2-5], it was
able to achieve good performance because of the parasitics
compensation technique utilized.
When designing a lumped element coupler, one has to keep
in mind that practically achieving the required coupling ratio,
input impedance matching, isolation and center frequency is
not as easy as it might seem. There are lots of parasitic
ohmic losses, inductances and capacitances associated with
the lumped components and the overall circuit layout, such
that one might get a response which is shifted from the
ideally simulated one [6,8]. Frequency shifts in the constructed
coupler could require manual tuning which would in turn result
in increasing the product’s final cost. Therefore careful design
should be adopted when working with lumped element circuits.
978-1-4799-5341-7/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
In this work, a miniaturized lumped element directional
coupler was carefully designed at 1 GHz where all the afore-
mentioned parasitics were accounted for at different levels of
the design process. Three different models were applied to help
understand the effect of parasitics and accordingly reduce it
as much as possible. Those models are: an ideal model (i.e.
no parasitics included), a Microwave model with first order
parasitics taken into consideration, and finally a more accu-
rate EM (Electromagnetic) model with higher order parasitics
accounted for. Applying these different models led to a fast
and accurate compensation for the parasitics, which in turn
resulted in a measured response in very good agreement with
the expected EM simulated one. The final size of the whole
circuit is very small, relative to its distributed counterpart, with
dimensions of 27×19.4×1.575 mm3 .
The next section shows the adopted lumped element cir-
cuit model for the coupled line directional coupler. Generic
formulas for each lumped element value are derived in terms
of the fundamental characteristics of a coupled line coupler.
Afterwards, the physical implementation along with the EM
simulation results are shown. Finally, the design is fabricated
and the measured results are discussed in comparison to the
EM simulated ones.
II. L UMPED E LEMENT C OUPLER D ESIGN
The adopted lumped element topology [2] along with the
distributed one can be seen in Fig.1. Each of the lumped
components has an underlying physical meaning based on
the operational principle of the distributed coupler, where Ce
represents the coupled electric fields and associated electrical
energy stored inside the dielectric substrate between the upper
conductor strips at ports 1, 2, 3 and 4 and the ground plane. Co
models the capacitively coupled electric fields between each
two neighboring ports. As the current flows through any of
the upper conductors, magnetic energy builds up and can be
represented by Le . Some of this energy is magnetically coupled
to the other conductor and this can be modelled by the inductor
Lo . In all of the above mentioned elements, (o) stands for odd
mode and (e) for even mode. Both Co and Lo can only be
seen in the odd mode configuration; whereas the other lumped
components can be present in either mode, even or odd. This
can be explained based on the even and odd mode analysis
technique detailed in [1].
After understanding what each lumped element actually
models, the next step would be to derive accurate generic
formulas for each of those components in terms of the fun-
damental characteristics of a distributed coupler, namely even
2383

Fig. 1: Adopted lumped element topology as mapped from the
distributed coupler structure.
Z0e and odd Z0o mode characteristic impedances, operating
frequency ω0 = 2πf0 and coupled section’s electrical length θ.
Fig. 2 shows the simple flow chart followed for the design of a
lumped element directional coupler with arbitrary requirements
(i.e. coupling ratio, center frequency and electrical length).
Fig. 2: Simple flowchart followed for the design of a lumped
element directional coupler with arbitrary specifications.
The above shown coupler, with its distributed and lumped
versions, has both vertical and horizontal planes of symmetry.
Therefore, the lumped element circuit along with the dis-
tributed one can be simultaneously analyzed using the even and
odd mode analysis technique to derive expressions for each of
the four aforementioned lumped components. All the deriva-
tions started by applying the horizontal plane of symmetry
(even or odd mode); and, then the vertical plane of symmetry
(even or odd mode) was utilized for further simplification.
In each case the input impedance of the distributed coupler
in terms of the even or odd mode impedances, frequency
and electrical length is equated to the input impedance of
the corresponding lumped element equivalent in terms of the
lumped element components. Fig. 3 briefly explains the three
steps applied to derive an expression for Ce . All the other
expressions were similarly derived, however the details are not
included here for the sake of brevity. The derived formulas for
the four lumped elements are as follows:
tan(θ/2)
Ce = (1)
ω0 Z0e
Z0e sin(θ)
Le = (2)
2ω0
ω0 Le + M tan(θ/2) − Z0o tan(θ/2)
Co = (3)
−2Le tan(θ/2)ω02 Z0o
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−ω0 tan(θ/2)Le + M + 2ω02 Z0o Le Co − Z0o
Lo = (4)
−2Co ω02 Z0o + ω0 tan(θ/2) − Z0o ω02 Ce
Where:
M = Z0o ω02 Le Ce (5)
Fig. 3: Derivation steps to obtain an expression for Ce .
A lumped element coupled line directional coupler was
then designed at 1 GHz with an equal power division coupling
ratio (3-dB) between ports 2 (thru port) and 3 (coupled port).
Table I lists the ideal lumped element values at 1 GHz
calculated based on the above derived equations.
The ideal response (i.e. with no parasitics) is first generated
based on the simple circuit model shown in Fig.1 using an
ordinary ADS circuit simulator. This can be called an ideal
model. This model does not take into account the effect of
the surface mount lumped components and the interconnects
between them. Then some of the first order parasitics are
taken into consideration by adding small sections of distributed
transmission lines that accounts for the physical dimensions of
the surface mount components and the interconnects between
them [6,8]. For this model, optimization is still done using
an ordinary circuit simulator. This can be called a Microwave
model. Due to the fact that this model is a first order one, it
still does not take into account the mutual coupling between
the different components of the circuit. Finally, the complete
coupler was EM simulated, using ADS Momentum, where
the aforementioned mutual couplings are accounted for in this
model. This is called an EM model. The structure shown in
Fig. 5 was initially EM simulated without the lumped elements
being there. Each lumped element was replaced by two discrete
ports and then the EM simulation result was exported as
a 24-port black box network which was then co-simulated
along with the practical inductors’ and capacitors’ values from
DigiKey [10] using the ordinary ADS circuit simulator. The
small value Lo of 0.33 nH was implemented using a short
conductor strip instead of using a physical lumped element as
can be seen in Fig.4. The substrate used was an FR-4 with a
thickness of 1.575 mm and r = 4.3.
Fig. 4: EM simulated coupler structure with the locations of
the lumped elements shown on the figure.
Large number of grounding cavity VIAs were used to
define a good ground for Ce as can be seen in Fig. 4. The
final optimized EM simulated response can be seen in Fig.
5. The final optimized lumped element values are presented in
Table I. Due to the fact that most of the higher order parasitics
and mutual couplings were considered in the EM simulation
model, the value of Ce was reduced to compensate for the
increased coupling capacitance through the gaps where the
lumped capacitors - to ground - are to be placed. Moreover,
the value for Le was reduced as well to compensate for the
added inductance associated with the added conductors that
formed the complete PCB. The value for Lo , in the final EM
structure, can not be accurately calculated unless the small strip
conductor was EM simulated separately to get an estimate of
its value, however we should be expecting a value close to 0.3
nH.
III. FABRICATED P ROTOTYPE AND M EASUREMENTS
The above designed coupler was fabricated at AP Circuits
[11] and the final prototype can be seen in Fig. 6a. The design
could have been made even smaller than that, however the gaps
were made a bit large to accommodate the 0603 surface mount
lumped components. Otherwise the 0402 or 0201 components
would have been more difficult to solder to the PCB since
all the components are populated in a very small area and
the required equipment is not readily available. The fabricated
prototype was measured using Agilent E5071C 2-port VNA
and the measured S-parameters are shown in Fig. 7. The
measured input impedance matching and isolation are 22.43
dB and 15.76 dB respectively at 1 GHz with a 10-dB fractional
bandwidth of about 10.85%. The coupling coefficient S31 is
3.48 dB and the thru coefficient S21 is 4.01 dB at 1 GHz. These
measured values are very close to the simulated S31 of 3.8 dB
2385
Fig. 5: Final optimized EM simulated response.
and S21 of 3.67 dB. The measured phase difference between
the coupled and thru ports along with the transmission phase
for each port and the phase error, with respect to the expected
90◦ phase difference, can be seen in Fig. 8. A phase error
of about 2.4◦ is noticed. Since the soldered connectors of the
ports on the PCB are closely spaced, extra uncalibrated co-
axial extensions (see Figs. 6b and 6c) were used to measure the
S-parameters so that both the VNA cable and the 50Ω matched
termination (or another cable for the S21 measurement) could
be placed simultaneously close to each other. These extensions
introduced losses and extra phase. Manual calibration was done
to cancel their effect. Where both ports of the VNA were
connected together - with the extensions being there - and the
added insertion loss and phase were estimated and removed
from the measured respective S-parameters that were affected
by their presence. The reduction in the measured value of the
thru coefficient is mainly because of the losses introduced due
to soldering and co-axial connectors that were not accounted
for in the EM simulations. Moreover, the tolerance (5-10%) of
the soldered lumped components introduced slight frequency
shift of about 3.1 MHz and 11 MHz from the expected 1
GHz center frequency in the measured S11 and S31 responses
respectively. Overall, the measured results agree quite well
with the simulated ones. Table II summarizes the measured
performance of the proposed coupler at 1 GHz. It’s worth
mentioning that the 1 GHz was chosen as a test frequency
to show the level of miniaturization one could reach at such a
low RF frequency.
IV. C ONCLUSION
This paper presented a miniaturized lumped element direc-
tional coupled line coupler carefully designed by accounting
for the different order parasitic effects. A three stage de-
sign process helped to understand the effect of parasitics in
a lumped element circuit and thus effectively compensated
for them. This followed procedure resulted in a measured
performance in very good agreement with the EM simulated
one. The measured response has good input matching and
 (a) Fabricated coupler prototype.
(b) S21 Measurement setup.
(c) S31 Measurement setup.
Fig. 6: Fabricated prototype (a) and measurement setups for
measuring S21 (b) and S31 (c)
Fig. 7: Measured S-parameters using an Agilent E5071C 2-
port VNA.
isolation properties. It was also found that the reduced thru
coefficient was mainly due to the effect of soldering and co-
axial connectors. A phase error of almost 2.4◦ was measured.
As a future work, one might include the solders and co-axial
connectors in the full wave EM simulations to be able to
accurately compensate for them as well.
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2386
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