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Communications
Ching-Luh Hsu1, Fu-Chieh Hsu2 and Jen-Tsai Kuo2
1
Department of Electronics Engineering, Ta Hwa Institute of Technology
1 Dahua Rd., Qionglin, Hsinchu, 307, TAIWAN
2
Department of Communication Engineering, National Chiao Tung University
1001 Tahsueh Rd., Hsinchu, 300, TAIWAN
Abstract — A new technique is developed for designing a easier to design and occupies less space [5]. Its design is
composite microstrip bandpass filter (BPF) with a 3-dB readily available if the order, cutoff frequency, and in-band
fractional bandwidth of more than 100%. The BPF is suitable for specification are specified. For realizing the HPF
ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless communications. The design
utilizes embedding individually designed highpass structures and characteristic, i.e., the lower stopband, short-circuited stubs
lowpass filters (LPF) into each other, followed by an optimization are tapped to the high-impedance microstrip sections of the
for tuning in-band performance. The stepped-impedance LPF is LPF, so that attenuation poles are inserted at DC.
employed to attenuate the upper stopband and quarter-wave Optimization is then employed to fulfill the specification over
short-circuited stubs are used to realize the lower stopband. Two a wide bandwidth. Two filters with 3dB bandwidths of 51%
such BPFs are fabricated and measured to demonstrate the and 127% are designed and measured.
performance.
Index Terms — Bandpass filters, microstrip filters, ultra-
g/ 4
wideband, wideband filters.
λg/ 4
I. INTRODUCTION LPF
HPF
The requirement of wideband bandpass filters (BPFs) has
emerged from advance of the ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless
communications [1-2]. For the UWB purpose, the fractional
bandwidth of BPFs usually exceeds 100%. Based on the
D irectly-ca sca de d B P F
traditional parallel-coupled line structure, very strong coupling
structure will be a must for such a wide bandwidth. The
tolerance of a microstrip fabrication process, however,
imposes an upper limit upon coupling levels for coupling
structures. To increase the coupling, special arrangement such C om p osite B P F
as three-line structure [3] can be incorporated into the filter
Fig. 1. Evolution of the proposed composite BPF.
structure for wideband design. The relative bandwidths of the
filters presented in [3], nevertheless, are still no more than
70%. Furthermore, filters synthesized using conventional II. BPF CONFIGURATION AND DESIGN PROCEDURE
method [4] show a smaller bandwidth than theoretical
Fig. 1 shows the configurations of a directly cascaded BPF
prediction, since the synthesis procedure is formulated only
and the proposed composite BPF. Obviously, the latter uses an
for relatively narrow band purposes [5]. Even the bandwidth
area much less than the former. Both BPFs consist of a hi-Z,
prediction by sophisticated Q value distribution method [6] is
low-Z LPF and an HPF structure designed with shunt quarter-
promising; the implementation of the microstrip coupled
wave short-circuited stubs separated with λg/4 sections, acting
stages with a very high coupling level is still limited by the
as impedance inverters. The variable λg is the guided
resolution of fabrication process.
wavelength at a proper frequency fo which will be addressed
Alternatively, a wideband BPF can be constructed by a
shortly.
direct cascade of an LPF and an HPF. Both upper and lower
Fig. 2(a) and 2(b) show the layouts of the microstrip LPF
transition bands can be determined individually as long as the
and HPF of our initial designs. The LPF has a cutoff
input and output impedances of both filters are matched. In
frequency at 10 GHz, and the HPF at 3 GHz for fulfilling the
this paper, the HPF and the LPF are combined together, or
UWB requirement. Note that the HPF shows a periodic
equivalently one is embedded into the other, so that the circuit
response due to its distributive nature and possesses a
area of entire circuit can be greatly saved. A stepped-
bandpass characteristic from DC to 2fo. Its center frequency fo
impedance structure is used to design the LPF because it is
should be large enough so that the passband performance of
2
0
λg/ 4 La
Lb
-10
-20 λg / 4 Lstub
|S11|,|S21| (dB)
-30 (a)
-40 Zinv La
λg / 2 Lb
-50 Directly cascaded BPF
Proposed composite BPF Z stub
λg/ 4 Lstub
-60 Lc
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Frequency (GHz) (b)
Fig. 3. Performances of the directly cascaded and the proposed Fig. 4. Derivations of the highpass structures in the composite
composite BPFs. BPFs. (a) Single-patch case. (b) Two-patch case.
It can be proved that the π-network in Fig. 4(b) also possesses -30
a high-pass characteristic, and the Zstub and Zinv values can be
derived in a similar fashion to the method given in [8]. Note -40
that the values of La and Lc have been specified by the LPF, Simulation
thus only Lstub and Lb have to be determined by a root-searching -50 Measurement
program. In the program, Lstub is chosen first and then Lb is
calculated from the 3dB point. The iteration finishes if the in- -60
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
band return loss of the composite BPF achieves a satisfactory Frequency (GHz)
level. It is found that the case in Fig. 4(a) works well for a (b)
bandwidth of about 50%, and the two-patch case in Fig. 4(b)
can show a good performance over a bandwidth up to 100%.
The composite BPF needs further optimization since the LPF
part of the composite BPF structure is perturbed. After
optimization, in-band return loss can be further improved up
to better than 20 dB as shown in Fig.3.
III. MEASUREMENTS
Two composite filters, built on a substrate with εr = 2.2 and
thickness h = 20 mils, are designed to demonstrate the
(c)
proposed idea. Circuit simulation is done before they are
fabricated, since parasitic effects of step discontinuities, T- Fig. 5. Geometry of the fabricated filter A. L11 = 0.3, L12 = 0.73, L2
junction and grounding via holes have to be taken into = 2.48, L31 = 2.07, L32 = 0.59, L4 = 3.28, Lstub1 = Lstub2 = 2.4, all in
mm. (b) Simulation and measurement responses. (c) Circuit photo.
account.
3
Fig. 5(a) plots the geometry of BPF A which has three low- Fig. 6(a) plots the geometry of filter B. In this circuit, two
Z patches and four short-circuited stubs. The passband is short-circuited stubs are used. In the final circuit optimization
designed from 6 GHz to 10 GHz, complying with the upper for the composite BPF, L2 is increased and L3 decreased by
frequency set of the UWB wireless communications. The 20%, while the other dimensions have relatively small
characteristic impedances corresponding to line sections with changes. The passband is designed from 3 GHz to 10 GHz.
widths Whi and WAo are 130Ω and 30Ω, respectively. Fig. 5(b) The simulation and measurement data are presented in Fig.
shows the simulation and measurement responses. The 6(b). The experimental circuit has not only a return loss better
measured return loss is better than 15dB. In the lower than 15 dB from 5 GHz to 9.5 GHz, but also a good rejection
transition band the measurement agrees very well with the in the upper stopband. Fig. 6(c) shows the photo of the circuit.
simulation. In the upper transition, the measured data have
deviations from the simulation. The discrepancy may attribute
IV. CONCLUSION
to the inaccurate modeling of via holes in simulation, since
each via may have a strong radiation at these frequencies. The A new technique for designing microstrip BPFs suitable for
photograph of the circuit is in Fig. 5(c). the UWB wireless communications is proposed. The BPF is
designed with a composite structure by embedding an HPF
and an LPF to each other. The HPF is realized by coupled
L2 L4 Lstub WAo short-circuited stubs and the LPF is by the well-known
stepped-impedance structure. Although the high-pass and low-
pass structures in a composite BPF are perturbed by each other,
the entire design shows a satisfactory bandpass characteristic
L5 Whi over a wide bandwidth. Two experimental filters are designed
L1 L3
to have bandwidths complying with the upper frequency set
(a) and full-band of the UWB specifications. The measured data
show a good passband characteristic and a good agreement
0 with the simulated results.
-10
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
-20 This work was supported in part by the National Science Council,
|S11|,|S21| (dB)
-40
REFERENCES
-50 Simulation [1] A. Saito, H. Harada and A. Nishikata, “Development of band
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-60 2003 IEEE Conference on Ultra Wideband Systems and
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 Technologies, pp. 76-80, Nov. 2003.
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(b) International Workshop on Ultra Wideband Systems, pp. 424-428,
May 2004.
[3] J.-T. Kuo and E. Shih, “Wideband bandpass filter design with
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[4] K.-S. Chin, L.-Y. Lin and J.-T. Kuo, “New formulas for
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[5] D. M. Pozar, Microwave Engineering, New York: John Wiley &
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[6] J. M. Drozd and W. T. Joines, “Maximally flat quarter-
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Fig. 6. (a) Geometry of the fabricated filter B. L1 = 0.85, L2 = 3.22, [7] Zeland Software Inc., IE3D Simulator, 1997.
L3 = 1.54, L4 = 3.39, L5=2.27, Lstub=3.45, all in mm. (b) Simulation [8] W. W. Mumford, “Tables of stub admittances for maximally flat
and measurement responses. (c) Circuit photo. filters using shorted quarter-wave stubs,” IEEE Trans.
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