947
Reconfigurable Planar SIW Cavity Resonator and Filter
Juan Carlos Bohorquez2" Benjamin Potelon', Christian Person', Eric Rius', Member, IEEE, Cedric Quendo',
,
Member, IEEE, Gerard Tanne6, Member, IEEE, Erwan Fourn'
IL.E.S.T. 6 Avenue Le Gorgeu CS 93837 29238 BREST Cedex 3-
2Los Andes University, Electrical and Electronic Department,
Abstract - A new reconfigurable frequency cavity compatible
with planar technology has been designed, manufactured and
measured. An original tuning solution is proposed, based upon
the insertion of vertical capacitive posts integrated within SIW
cavities. One extremity of each post is connected to a floating
metallic ring, located on the substrate supporting the SIW cavity.
The frequency agility is obtained once the metallic ring is
connected to the ground plane by short-circuited the
corresponding annular slot using surface actuators. Such
combination of volumic cavity and planar activation leads to
reconfigurable filters with high Q values and simplified tuning
control conditions.
Index Terms - Frequency reconfigurable rectangular cavity,
microwave filter, Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW), filter
synthesis, planar technologies.
I. INTRODUCTION
The advancement of implementing new technologies for
passive circuits has provided the development of integrated
cavities in the substrate, whose implementation is compatible
with industry multilayer PCBs standards. Different
contributions have been reported in that way, resulting in
original volumic passive structures, like the Electromagnetic
Band Gap (EBG) filters [1]-[4] or Substrate Integrated
Waveguide (SIW) topologies [5]-[7]. The main idea leads in
the incorporation of a cavity within a substrate, delimitated by
means of periodic metallic post reproducing equivalent
electric side walls. The cavity is coupled to a microstrip line,
thus resulting in a planar high Q cavity compatible with
standards PCB technologies and surface mounted techniques.
Other approaches have been also proposed, in which the
cavity remains integrated within the substrate, the delimitating
electric walls being in a continuous form (Fully Conducting
Side Wall circuits (FCSW)) by using Micromachining
techniques [8]-[10]. These technological orientations can be
efficiently considered for designing quite lossless narrow
bandwidth filters. Unfortunately, they do not offer any
flexibility for controlling or modifying the electrical
performances of such circuits, especially in terms of frequency
or operating bandwidth. EBG and SIW circuits are preferred
today rather than micromachined solutions, because they
remain compatible with standard printed (multilayer) circuit
board process, and remain consequently quite low cost
solutions. In [11], a center frequency reconfigurable EBG
0-7803-9542-5/06/$20.00 C2006 IEEE
- France
carrera 1 N. 18A - 10 Bogota Colombia
-
cavity is presented, whose resonance frequency is obtained
through the variation of the size of the cavity using the
activation of various posts that conform the volumic
delimitation of the cavity by modifying the electrical boundary
conditions.
We present in this article a frequency reconfigurable cavity
able to be integrated within a supporting substrate, compatible
with standards PCBs or LTCC processes, as well as common
surface mounting techniques. We use the principle of storing
electric and magnetic energies to increase or decrease the
volume of the cavity, by locally modifying the E-field and H-
fields distributions through local perturbations. In [12], Pozar
presents the expressions for the change in the resonant
frequency of an arbitrary cavity with a perturbation in its
shape as in (1), and which is written in terms of stored
energies as in (2).
(0-0)0=Co
(1)
COO
0 00 _ AWm A AWe
(2)
CoO Wm + We
Where AWm and AWe are changes in the magnetic and
electric energy, respectively after a shape modification. Wm+
We is the total energy stored in the cavity, coo is the resonant
frequency of the original cavity and co is the resonant
frequency of the perturbed cavity.
II. TOPOLOGY AND CIRCUIT DESIGN
A. Circuit Design
The design of the cavity is based upon the use of classical
analysis equations of waveguides and rectangular cavities. The
method begins by defining the resonant frequency (fQ) and the
cutoff frequency (Qc) of the waveguide on its fundamental
mode TB10. With the frequency (Q, and the height (h) of the
substrate which sets the height of the waveguide, the width
 948

(w) of the cavity is found. Then, it proceeds to find the post is disconnected from the ground plane. Moreover,
propagation constant (P3mn), and therefore the guided additional circuits, one for each state were designed by
wavelength, as well as the length (1) of the cavity to operate at considering a weak coupling feeding in order to measure the
the fundamental mode TEB11, (Fig 1). quality factor. The circuit is a rectangular cavity (6.7mm x
6.6mm x 0.508mm) with one post in the middle (diameter =
B. External Coupling to the - cavity using CPW access
394ptm), one disc of contact (diameter= 975pim) and one slot
The energy is coupled to the cavity by means of input- (diameter= 1105pim).
output magnetic coupling slots that are located in the upper 1
face of the cavity, at an approximate distance of kg/8 from the
edges. They are designed according to the procedure described
in [10]. The coplanar waveguide feeding structures are short
circuited, guaranteeing a maximum current density in the slot
regions for the different frequencies of resonance, enhancing
optimal magnetic coupling conditions to the cavity. The
circuit is shown in Fig. 1.
magnetic

upper
capacitive

annular ring capacitive circular slot

*7T77V7
. . in
A

capacitive hi
post h v s
*t r
Fig. 1. 3D view of the implemented circuit. orore4
r r
o r - rs o or. o rL rx n r orFi
iR!E!4!4bsr l | * FFM9L XFbE l l99v9S
r
r| n|
;211 lS

A
C. Variation ofFrequency
["Ii
As the circuit uses the principle of energies storage inside of
the cavity, a cylindrical metallic post aligned parallel to the annular ring
electric fields is inserted in the middle of the cavity (post). A state off: post disconnected
circular slot is etched in the upper face of the cavity, around
the post, as described in Fig. 1, generating a capacitance for Fig. 2. Top, front and lateral view for the circuits in state on, and
the storage of electric energy. At the bottom of the cavity, the in state off.
post can be electrically disconnected with respect to the TABLE I
ground plane by means of an annular ring (state off), or it can DIMENSIONS DEMONSTRATOR I
be connected (state on) as mentioned in Fig. 2.
In order to provide tunability, the post can be connected to
w 6700 um Op | 394 ,um
the ground plane, by short-circuited the post at the bottom face gd 315 um Odc 975 m
of the cavity through the lower annular ring. Then the storage
element is activated, obtaining the resonant frequency shift
if 210 um |lcpw 400 um
(state on), (Fig. 2). wf 2210 um gcpw 80 um
1 6600 um wcpw 90 um
III. SIMULATED AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS h
Osc 1105 um 508 Lim
While using the structure previously described, two
demonstrators were designed but only the first were build and To obtain the unloaded quality factor (Q11), we have
measured to validate the principle of tunability. Each measured the circuits constructed for this aim, the central
demonstrator is conformed by several circuits that represent frequency (fo) and the 3dB bandwidth of the S21 in order to
each one of the possible states. obtain by mean of (3) the loaded quality factor (QL). This one
A. First demonstrator is related with Q1 by mean of (4). We have used a weak
coupling (wf= 900 ptm, and lf= 50 ptm) in order to minimize
The first demonstrator is composed by four circuits: state the impact on the unloaded Q1 extrapolation from the
on,the post is connected to the ground plane; state off, the denominator of (4), (Fig. 3. and Fig 4).

2
 949

We obtain a variation in the filter central frequency of 5% 0-

around 10 GHz. A quality factor of 249 was obtained when -5-
the post is on, and a quality factor of 304 when it is off. The
fractional bandwidth for the on state is 2.35% and for the off
state is 2.4%. o -15
la 1

Q = fo (3)
lVMeasured
Simulated
Af
A3dB -Lo
8_5 9.5
Q = QL freq, GHz
I - S21 (fO) Fig. 6. Experimental electrical responses for the first order filter
build in the demonstrator 1, state on
B. Second demonstrator
-20
The second demonstrator is a square cavity but with three
" -40- posts inside the cavity in order to achieve different values of
stoking energy and then different values of central frequency
(eight different frequency states can be obtained with three
Q61304,2 posts). As shown in Fig. 7. and Fig. 8, the posts were inserted
-60 li..............7.......
in the central axe of the transversal section of the cavity;
9 t'0 11 dimensions are listed in Table II. Posts are asymmetrical in
freq, GHz order to distinguish the eight frequency states, Fig. 9.
Fig. 3. Measured S21 parameter for the single cavity resonator of We show the three most representative simulated data in
the first demonstrator in the off state. Fig. 9. In Fig. 10 we sumarize the simulated values of the
reconfigurable circuit. By considering the extreme states (off
-20 off off and on on on), a maximal variation of 16% can be
obtained while keeping the same bandwidth.
C%J XW
40....

Qon=249 9
-60 ...

9 10 11
freq, GHz
Fig. 4. Measured S21 parameter for the single cavity resonator of
the first demonstrator in the on state.
Fig. 5. and Fig. 6. compare the experimental and simulated results
of one order filter for the two states. The agreement is correct despite
a frequency shift due to technological dispersions. For the state off, Fig. 7. 3D view of demonstrator II, for the configuration: Xn =
central frequency and insertion losses are 9.97 GHz and 2.13 dB, off; Xc = on; Xp = on
respectively. For the state on, central frequency and insertion losses
are 9.47 GHz and 1.88 dB.
0f
5-5

N-0';;-
-15 / / V
,-- lVl~~easured
Simulated
-25
8.5 9*6 10.5
freq, GHz Fig. 8. Top view of one of the circuits in demonstrator II.
Fig. 5. Experimental electrical responses for the first order filter
build in the demonstrator 1, state off.

3
 950

TABLE !! control conditions. Preliminary measurements on a

DIMENSIONS DEMONSTRATOR II demonstrator I, validate the design and the cavity exhibits Qu
w 6.9um Oscxp 450,um equal to 304 and 250 for the two states (off and on). The
variation in central frequency is 500 around 10 GHz. A second
gd 150um Odcxn 300um demonstrator, combining 3 capacitive posts and allowing 8
if 200um Odcxp 350um frequency states is also presented. For this one, simulation
results are presented, but experimental results are not available
wf 2200um gcpw 50um because the filter fabrication is in progress.
1 6.8um wcpw 63 um
Oscxn 350um dxn 1OOOLIm ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
h 508,um dxp 1500,um The authors wish to acknowledge the financial support of the
Program ALBAN, the European Union Programme of High
Level Scholarships for Latin America, scholarship
No.(E04D028245CO).
I'

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activated on the top or on the bottom of the cavity. Such
combination of volumic cavity and planar activation leads to
reconfigurable filters with high Q values and simplified tuning