RADIO ENGINEERING I

Chapter 2: Transmission Lines

 Radio Engineering I

Two cases

– Components dimensions are small compared to

the wavelength of the signal at the operating
frequency.
– Components dimensions are about or higher than
10% of the wavelength.

Dimension/
mm

1 GHz 30 mm
10 GHz 3 mm

Frequency /GHz
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• Input impedance Zin=Z(-l)

( )
• − = l
( )

+ tanh
Zin= − =
+ tanh b=2p/l

• Impedance is changing as a function of the length of line.

• Lossless transmission line:

+ tan
Zin= − =
+ tan
Radio Engineering I

Transmission lines

– Example:

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Radio Engineering I

Transmission lines

• The behavior of 1.27 cm length conductor

– Almost a short circuit at 10 MHz.
– A small inductance and maybe some stray capacitance
at 100 MHz.
– The distributed L-C network at 1 GHz frequency.

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Radio Engineering I

Transmission lines

· At high frequencies, controlled impedance transmission lines

are used to move signals around a printed board.
· There are different kind of transmission lines. For example

Conductor
Dielectric substrate

Ground plane

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Radio Engineering I

Transmission lines

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How the width and length of these lines

could be calculated?

l/4

Radio Engineering I
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Transmission lines

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Radio Engineering I

Characteristic impedance for microstrip

line
• Microstrip geometry and field configuration is shown in the
figure.
• A microstrip line is, by definition, a transmission line consisting
of a strip conductor and a ground plate separated by a
dielectric medium.

• The solid lines illustrate electric field lines and the dashed lines
represents a magnetic field lines.
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Radio Engineering I

Impedance matching

• Microstrip line

• The propagation mode in the microstrip is not an ideal

transverse electromagnetic mode (TEM mode) but a quasi
TEM.
• The phase velocity vp and the wavelength l in the substrate
are defined by ( the effective dielectric constant)
ereff
c vp c l0
vp = l= = =
e reff f f e reff e reff

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Radio Engineering I

What is the characteristic impedance of a

microstrip line ?
er is dielectric constant
(relative permittivity)

• When w/h<1 (the thickness of the strip is negligible)

• At first we will calculate the effective dielectric constant

Wavelength in the substrate

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Radio Engineering I

Example
w=0.08 mm
h=0.15 mm
er (dielectric constant)= 3.8
f= 2 GHz

• When w/h<1 (the thickness of the strip is negligible)

• At first we will calculate the effective relative dielectric
constant

Wavelength on the substrate

l0=150 mm
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Radio Engineering I

What is the characteristic impedance of a

microstrip line ?

• Characteristic impedance (Z0) when the width of the line

known:

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Radio Engineering I

What is the characteristic impedance of a

microstrip line ?

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Radio Engineering I

What is the characteristic impedance of a

microstrip line ?

• When w/h>1 (wider microstrip line)

• At this case the effective dielectric constant is

• The characteristic impedance :

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How the width of the lines could be

calculated?

l/4

Radio Engineering I
Radio Engineering I

What is the width of a microstrip line for

the defined characteristic impedance ?

• When w/h£2 (t/h£0.005) (narrower microsprip line)

• The width of the microstrip line can be calculated

• When w/h³2 (wider microstrip line)

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Radio Engineering I

What is the width of microstrip line when

we know characteristic impedance ?
• In the formulas parameters A and B is defined with the
formulas
Z er + 1 er - 1æ 0,11 ö
A= 0 + ç 0,23 + ÷
60 2 er + 1è er ø
377p
B=
2 Z0 e r

• In the previous cases we assumed that the thickness of the

strip conductor (t) is zero or negligible (t/h£0.005).
• The equations could be modified to include the thickness of the
strip conductor.

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Radio Engineering I

What is the width of microstrip line when

we know characteristic impedance ?

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Radio Engineering I

What is the width of microstrip line when

we know characteristic impedance ?

Two cases at first

1
W
³
h 2p
Therefore an approximate correction is made by replacing the
strip width W by Weff the effective width

Weff W t æ 2h ö
= + (1 + ln ç ÷
h h ph è t ø

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Radio Engineering I

What is the width of microstrip line when

we know characteristic impedance ?
When
W 1
£
h 2p

In that case the effective width Weff could be calculated from the
equation
Weff W t æ 2p W ö
= + (1 + ln ç ÷
h h ph è t ø

t is the thickness of the strip conductor

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Radio Engineering I

Transmission lines

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Radio Engineering I

Transmission lines

There are calculators for different kind of transmission lines

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Radio Engineering I

Coplanar waveguide example

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Radio Engineering I

Transmission lines

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Radio Engineering I

Transmission lines

Comparision of microstrip line and coplanar waveguide is explained

in
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwNb0ndIT5k

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