A SUSPENDED STRIPLINE

BANDPASS FILTER USING HYBRID

TRANSMISSION LINE STEPPED
IMPEDANCE RESONATOR

resonator. However, the unloaded quality factor of the type II

resonator is lower than type III resonator, because the metal
brick reduces the size of the whole channel.

ZhaoXu Xu, Kai Kang, and Joshua Le Wei Li

Department of Electronic Engineering, University of Electronic
Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China;
Corresponding author: 329363599@qq.com
ABSTRACT: In this paper, a suspended stripline bandpass filter
using hybrid transmission line stepped impedance resonator
(HTLSIR) is proposed. SSL has been proven to be an excellent
transmission-line system for realizing different types of filters.
However, due to the effective permittivity being too close to unity,
the size of the distributed elements is usually very large. The novel
resonator introduced in this letter contains a section of hybrid
transmission line which consists of the SSL and the microstrip line.
The characteristics of the HTLSIR have been analyzed clearly. The
novel SSL filter is designed, fabricated and tested. Both simulated
and measured results are presented.
Key words: suspended stripline; hybrid transmission line stepped
impedance resonator (HTLSIR); bandpass filter; resonant
frequency; unloaded quality factor

Fig 2 Fundamental structure of hybrid tansmission line stepped impedance

resonator

Z T jZ 3

Z1Z 2 tan 1 Z 2 tan 2 Z 2 Z 3 tan 3 Z1Z 3 tan 1 tan 2 tan 3

Z 2 Z 3 Z1Z 3 tan 1 tan 2 Z1Z 2 tan 1 tan 3 Z 22 tan 2 tan 3 (1)

Let YT=0, then the parallel resonance condition can be

obtained as follows:

Z 2 Z 3 Z1Z 3 tan 1 tan 2 Z1Z 2 tan 1 tan 3 Z 22 tan 2 tan 3 0 (2)

thus

1. INTRODUCTION
In modern microwave communication systems, bandpass
filter is an essential component, which is usually used in both
receivers and transmitters. With the rapid development of
modern communication systems, bandpass filters play more
important roles in a variety of microwave circuits. The
development of bandpass filters has been focused on compact
size and high performance.

tan 1 tan 2

Z2
Z
R z1
tan 1 tan 3 3 Rz 2
(3),
(4)
xZ1
yZ1

tan 2 tan 3

Z3
1 1 1
Rz 3
1
(5), x y z
zZ 2

Substituting TA1 2 3 , into (5) yields,

RZ 3

(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig 1 (a) type I: the conventional resonator, (b) type II: the resonator in [4],
(c) type III: the resonator proposed in this letter

Finally, a novel fifth order SSL bandpass filter is

designed, produced and measured to verify the high
performance of the novel resonator. The SSL filter proposed
in this paper has been fabricated on a RO 4003 substrate, with
a thickness of 0.254mm and dielectric constant of 3.55. It is
shown that the new resonator can be used in SSL filter to
effectively reduce the size of filter.

tan 2 (tan TA1 tan 2 )

1 tan TA tan 2

If there was no gap between the metal brick and the

substrate in type II resonator, it would become the type III

(7)

When 0<Rz3<1 and 0< TA1 </2,

tan TA1

2 RZ 3
1
R
(tan 2 Z 3 )
1 RZ 3
tan 2
1 - RZ 3

(8)

Thus, when 2 3 arctan RZ 3

TA1 reaches a minimum value of

2 RZ 3
1 RZ 3

TA1 min arctan

2. HYBRID TRANSMISSION LINE STEPPED
IMPEDANCE RESONATOR

(6)

(9)

These calculations reveal that 2=3 is a condition for a

minimum length TA1.

(a)
Fig 3 (a)Calculated results of resonance frequencies for different values of
Lx. (b)Calculated results of unloaded quality factor for different values of Lx.

The resonant frequency of the two types of resonators can

be adjusted by changing the parameter Lx shown in Fig.3.
Type III resonator has far broader adjusting range of resonant
frequency than the type II resonator. It means that if the
resonant frequencies of the two types of resonators are the
same, the size of type III resonator can be made much smaller
than type II resonator.
3.

of hybrid transmission line which can provide extra degrees

of freedom in filter design. Moreover, it can also enhance the
capacitive loading to reduce the size of resonator while
keeping the resonant frequency not changed. An example
filter is designed, built and measured. The simulated and
measured results are in good agreement generally, and the
insertion loss is less than 1 dB in passband.

EXAMPLE FILTER

To verify the benefit of the novel resonator, a fifth order

bandpass filter with a center frequency of 2.25 GHz and
bandwidth of 500 MHz has been designed, fabricated and
measured. The initial geometry is obtained by calculating the
prototype coupling matrix according to the method
introduced by [9-10]. The maximum return loss within the
passband is more than 20 dB. To achieve the fractional
bandwidth of 22%, a tight coupling among the resonators is
needed. It is realized by providing some overlapping between
adjacent resonators.

Fig 6 Simulated (dash lines) and measured (solid lines) frequency responses
of the novel suspended stripline bandpass filter

ACKNOWLEGMENT
This work was supported by.
REFERENCE

(a)
Fig 4 top and bottom layout of the proposed filter (a)top layout (b)bottom
layout

Fig 5 Photograph of the fabricated novel suspended stripline band-pass

filter

4. CONCLUSION
In this letter, a novel suspended stripline resonator is
proposed. Compared to the conventional SIR, it has a section

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