A Microfabricated Bandpass Filter with Coarse-Tuning and Fine-Tuning Ability Based on IPD Process and PCB Artwork

In this paper, a bandpass filter (BPF) was developed utilizing GaAs-based integrated passive device technology which comprises an asymmetrical spiral inductor and an interleaved array capacitor, possessing two tuning modes: coarse-tuning and fine-tuning. By altering the number of layers and radius of the GaAs substrate metal spheres, capacitance variation from 0.071 to 0.106 pF for coarse-tuning, and of 0.0015 pF for fine-tuning, can be achieved. Five air bridges were employed in the asymmetrical spiral inductor to save space, contributing to a compact chip area of 0.015λ0 × 0.018λ0. The BPF chip was installed on the printed circuit board artwork with Au bonding wire and attached to a die sink. Measured results demonstrate an insertion loss of 0.38 dB and a return loss of 21.5 dB at the center frequency of 2.147 GHz. Furthermore, under coarse-tuning mode, variation in the center frequency from 1.956 to 2.147 GHz and transmission zero frequency from 4.721 to 5.225 GHz can be achieved. Under fine-tuning mode, the minimum tuning value and the average tuning value of the proposed BPF can be accurate to 1.0 MHz and 4.7 MHz for the center frequency and 1.0 MHz and 12.8 MHz for the transmission zero frequency, respectively.

Miniaturized trisection BPF design using size-reduced substrate integrated coaxial resonators

The contribution of this work is to propose miniaturized trisection bandpass filters (BPFs) using size-reduced substrate integrated coaxial resonators (SICRs). The applied SICRs are operated under a coaxial mode. The occupied circuit area of the SICR developed from its structurally similar one, the substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) cavity, is only 6.2% that of the latter, corresponding to a circuit-area reduction rate of 93.8%. The cross-coupling between the input and output resonators can be either a magnetic or electric coupling for locating the transmission zero near either the upper or lower passband edge, respectively. Sample trisection BPFs with magnetic/electric cross-couplings are built for experimental verification. Agreements between measured and simulated data are observed. These miniaturized trisection BPFs with a freely switchable transmission zero are endowed with the advantage of an excellent circuit-area efficiency in the category of SICR and SIW cavity trisection BPFs.

Half-Elliptical Resonator Lowpass Filter with a Wide Stopband for Low Band 5G Communication Systems

In this paper, a lowpass filter is designed using half elliptical resonators with a wide stopband. New formulas are presented to achieve a circuit model for the half elliptical resonators used in this work. Additionally, the transfer function and transmission zero equations are used to adjust the frequency of the transmission zeros of the filter. The cut-off frequency of the lowpass filter is 1.26 GHz with a sufficiently large stopband, extending from 1.48 GHz to 20 GHz. The proposed filter’s figure of merit is 62,520, demonstrating its outperformance compared to the state of the art. The filter is implemented on a RT-5880 substrate with a constant dielectric of 2.2, thickness of 31 mil and loss tangent of 0.0009. The LPF was fabricated and tested, showing good agreement between the simulated and measured results.

An Intrinsically Switched Tunable CABW/CFBW Bandpass Filter

In this paper, a novel intrinsically switched tunable bandpass filter based on a dual-mode T-shaped varactor-loaded resonator is presented. The varactors loaded in the T-shaped resonator are capable of efficiently tuning the resonant frequencies of the even and odd modes, as well as the transmission-zero frequency. Without any additional RF switches, the passband of the filter can be intrinsically switched off by adjusting the transmission zero to the resonant frequencies. In the switch-on state, the constant absolute bandwidth (CABW) or constant fractional bandwidth (CFBW) passband can be achieved by controlling the frequency space between the two resonances. For a demonstration, a 0.8–1.1 GHz intrinsically switched tunable bandpass filter with 74 MHz CABW or 8.5% CFBW was fabricated and tested. In the whole operating band with |S11| < 10 dB, the insertion losses for CABW and CFBW are better than 3.3 dB and 3 dB, respectively, and the isolations are better than 20 dB in the switch-off state. The measured results have a good agreement with simulated results, which verifies the design theory.

Inline pseudoelliptic waveguide filters using asymmetric Iris coupled transverse rectangular ridge resonators

In this work, a new structure for the implementation of inline pseudoelliptic waveguide filters using non-resonating modes, based on asymmetric iris coupled transverse rectangular ridge resonators has been proposed. The basic structure is comprised of a ridge that is always centered and transverse to the waveguide center axis and has the ability to create a transmission zero (TZ) above or below the passband without involving any rotation of the ridge, thus enabling quicker design of the resulting filters by allowing the use of more efficient analysis tools like FEST3D, in addition to the more general purpose methods like HFSS. A centered ridge enables the ease of manufacturing through machining. The proposed structure makes use of rectangular waveguide's dominant TE10 mode as a non-resonating mode to create an alternate energy path from source to load, thus realizing a TZ, while the asymmetric irises excite the ridge resonator, enabling the overall structure to act as a singlet capable of producing both a pole and a TZ. A third-order filter with one TZ and a fifth-order filter with two TZs have been designed and manufactured. Measured results show good consistency with the simulated data, validating the viability of the proposed structure.