Microstrip Circulator

Bandwidth Investigation
Laila Marzall, Mauricio Pinto, Andrea Ashley,
Dimitra Psychogiou, Zoya Popovic
Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering
University of Colorado at Boulder

Funded by Qorvo through the DARPA M3IC MagIC program

2018 USNC-URSI National Radio Science Meeting

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Boulder, CO - January, 2018
Outline

• Introduction and background: ferrite circulators

• Circulator design procedure and simulations
• Baseline microstrip circulator design
• Simulated performance
• Experimental validation
• Circulator design for increased bandwidth
• Fill-factor analysis and experimental validation
• Non-uniform magnetic field analysis and validation
• Conclusion and future work

2018 USNC-URSI National Radio Science Meeting

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Background
• Commercial circulators usually in waveguide or stripline
• Broadband and high-power circulators can be found
• Our goal is to integrate with GaN monolithic microwave integrated circuits
(MMICs)  microstrip circulator design compatible with MMICs needed
• 175x smaller in area
• 25x thinner
• 4375x smaller in volume

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Basic Microstrip Junction Circulator Geometry

• Ferrite cavity embedded in the

substrate.
• The low-loss substrate support
microstrip lines and ground
• Ports are matched with a
symmetric, multi-section
network
• The filling factor describes the
ferrite thickness

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Basic Definitions*
• Saturation magnetization (𝑀0 )  Minimum magnetic field to fully
magnetize
• Gyromagnetic ratio (𝛾)  slope of precessional frequency , ideally 𝛾 =
𝑟𝑎𝑑 𝐴
2.21 ∙ 105 /
𝑠 𝑚
• Demagnetization factor (𝑁)  Depends on the shape of ferrite
• Magnetic bias field (𝐻0 )  Magnetic excitation applied to the ferrite
• Ferrimagnetic resonance  Frequency where RF field (𝜔) and
precessional frequency (𝜔𝑖 ) enter into resonance. At this point the
direction of electron spin magnetic moment will depart greatly from the
direction of DC field  Also called Kittle line

*J. Helszajn, The Stripline circulator. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley, 2008.

*D. Linkhart, Microwave circulator design. Boston: Artech House, 2014.

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Design Equations For a Disk Magnetic Insulator
The permeability is obtained by solving The effective permeability 𝜇𝑒𝑓𝑓 can be
Maxwell’s equations with tensor calculated by defining two new variables:
susceptibility:
z 𝜇 = 1 + 𝜒𝑥𝑥 𝜅 = −𝑗𝜒𝑥𝑦
H0
𝜇2 − 𝜅 2
𝜇𝑒𝑓𝑓 =
𝜇
𝜒𝑥𝑥 𝜒𝑥𝑦 0
𝜇𝑟 = 𝐼 + −𝜒𝑥𝑦 𝜒𝑥𝑥 0
0 0 0 The disk radius can be calculated as:

=0
𝜔𝑚 𝜔𝑖 1.84
𝜒𝑥𝑥 = 𝜔𝑖 = γ 𝐻0 − 𝑁𝑧 𝑀0
−𝜔 2 + 𝜔𝑖2 𝑅𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒 =
𝜔 𝜇0 𝜇𝑒𝑓𝑓 𝜀0 𝜀𝑟
𝑗𝜔𝑚 𝜔 𝜔𝑚 = 𝑀0 γ
𝜒𝑥𝑦 =
−𝜔 2 + 𝜔𝑖2

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 Baseline Design – Initial Geometry
• Ferrite  Trans-Tech TT1-105
• M0 = 139,000 [A/m]
• Relative permittivity εr = 12.2
Port2 Port3
• Tanδ = 0.00025
• Substrate  Rogers RO4350B
• Relative permittivity εrsub = 3.66
• Tanδ = 0.004
• Magnetic bias field (H0):
• Uniform distribution
• Magnitude H0 = M0 = 139,000 [A/m]
• Center frequency  3.9 GHz / Port1
Below FMR
• Simulation  HFSS (Driven
Terminal)
• Ultimate goal: BW study

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Bandwidth Analysis – Filling Factor
• Simulation conditions:
Ferrite thickness
• Magnetic bias field kept constant
- 60 mils / 1.524 mm
and uniform at H0 = 139,000
[A/m] - 30 mils / 0.762 mm
- 15 mils / 0.381 mm
• Ferrite placed at the lower side of
substrate

|S11| |S21| |S31|

Threshold  -10 dB Threshold  -3 dB Threshold  -15 dB

f0
f0 f0

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Real Magnetic Bias Field Simulation
• Real magnetic bias field can be implemented by permanent magnets,
leading to a non-uniform distribution
• The static DC magnetic field is simulated in Ansys Maxwell
• The obtained distribution is translated to a discretized the ferrite in rings
Ansys HFSS

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Baseline Design Validation with Non-Uniform MBF

• Permanent magnet parameters:

• Material: Neodymium (N35)
• Thickness: 3 mm
• Diameter: 18 mm
• Position: 2 magnets placed above
microstrip circuit and below
ground by plastic retractors

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Frequency Analysis – Non-Uniform MBF
• Simulation conditions:
• Magnetic bias field simulated for different Magnet thickness
thickness of permanent magnets - 0.5 mm
• Magnet diameter: 10 mm - 1.5 mm
• Ferrite disk fulfilling substrate - 5.0 mm
• Other parameters kept as is in baseline
design
|S11| |S21| |S31|
Threshold  -10 dB Threshold  -3 dB Threshold  -15 dB

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Fill Factor with Non-Uniform MBF Measurements
• Measured S-
parameters for various
filling factors and a
real magnet
• Frequency shifts up to
20%
• Observed trade-offs
between bandwidth
and insertion loss
• Losses increase
drastically as operating
frequency
approximates from
FMR

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Matched Circulator Measurements
• Input impedance extracted
from de-embedded ports at
the edge of the ferrite cavity
using full-wave simulation
• Stepped-impedance matching
network designed to match
ferrite cavity impedance to
50 Ω
• Bandwidth improvement
from 10% to 40% percent 

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Summary
• Conclusions
• Bandwidth of circulators and other ferrite devices are highly affected by the
filling factor, magnetic bias field and matching network.
• RF simulations must be supported by DC magnetic field full-wave co-
simulations to achieve the best agreement between measured and simulated
results.
• Variations of ferrite’s geometry and permanent magnets offer higher degrees
of freedom for designers. The presented approach can be used to carry out
further investigations to broaden bandwidth, tune operating frequency and
miniaturize.
• Future work
• Analysis of complex input impedance behavior, considering varying port
impedance and multiple excited ports.
• Integration of circulators with active circuits in MMICs.

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Microstrip Circulator
Bandwidth Investigation
Laila Marzall, Mauricio Pinto, Andrea Ashley,
Dimitra Psychogiou, Zoya Popovic

Thank you!

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