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Published in IET Microwaves, Antennas & Propagation
Received on 10th February 2014
Revised on 26th May 2014
Accepted on 30th May 2014
doi: 10.1049/iet-map.2014.0085

ISSN 1751-8725

Miniaturisation method for coupled-line bandpass


filters with identical and minimal number
of reactive elements
Taejun Lim, Byung-Wook Min, Yongshik Lee
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749, Korea
E-mail: yongshik.lee@yonsei.ac.kr

Abstract: This study presents an improved method of reactive loading for miniaturisation of coupled-line filters. Compared to the
previous method, the proposed method requires a reduced number of reactive elements. Moreover, miniaturisation is
accomplished with equal reactance. Effectively, this further decreases the number of reactive elements. Therefore apart from
improved loss performance because of the reduced number of low-Q lumped elements, low-cost fabrication and simpler
design procedure are also achieved while maintaining a similar rate of miniaturisation. A complete set of design equations is
provided for both shunt-capacitive and series-inductive loading. The ideal simulation results, which are in excellent agreement
with those of conventional counterparts based on l/4 lines, theoretically validate the method, whereas the experimental results
that match the ideal results better than the previous method demonstrate the practicality of the proposed method.

1 Introduction number of reactive elements compared to the method in [6].


On top of that, miniaturisation is accomplished with the
Filters have been a popular research topic in the field of same reactance (or susceptance) at each section. Effectively,
microwave engineering. Among various high-frequency this further reduces the number of reactive elements since
filters, the coupled-line filter is perhaps the most popular series or shunt connections of identical capacitors (or
type of bandpass filters. The planar structure of coupled inductors) required in [6] can be avoided. This is a great
lines can be easily implemented in microstrip technology, advantage as, besides allowing the filters to suffer less from
enabling low-cost fabrication. Also, coupled lines are very the low-Q lumped elements, low-cost fabrication is enabled.
well characterised that their performance can be predicted Also, all coupled-line sections that are commensurate in
by popular circuit simulators very accurately. Furthermore, electrical length simplify the design procedure greatly.
the versatility of coupled lines has enabled development of Complete sets of design equations are derived for
filters with improved stop-band response [1–3], multi-band shunt-capacitive as well as series-inductive loading for an
response [4] and size reduction [1–7], all through reactive arbitrary filter order. The method is verified theoretically by
loading, which is a traditional method of structural ideal simulation results of miniaturised filters that agree
modification for passive circuits [8–13]. very strongly with the conventional counterparts, and also
In [6], a generalised reactive loading method for verified experimentally with measured results of filters at
coupled-line filters has been demonstrated. It overcomes the 0.9 and 2.0 GHz that match very well with the ideal
limitation of the previous miniaturisation method of reactive simulation results.
loading for coupled-line filters [3, 5], which is performance
degradation such as bandwidth shrinkage, resulting from the 2 Miniaturisation
equivalence of S-parameters only at the centre frequency.
Furthermore, for the method in [6], the design parameters Fig. 1a shows the proposed Nth-order filter that consists of
of miniaturised filters can be tuned by the bandwidth N + 1 grounded coupled-line sections and N shunt
relationship before and after miniaturisation, which can be capacitors that are identical. All coupled lines are of
chosen arbitrarily with no effect on the passband response. electrical length θ. Miniaturisation is achieved when θ <
Therefore the generalised method provides design flexibility 90°. The design equations can be obtained by developing
that substantially widens the practical range of filters that an equivalent circuit which resembles the general equivalent
can be miniaturised. circuit of a bandpass filter in Fig. 1b [14]. After that, the
This paper presents an improved miniaturisation method of popular filter synthesis method in [14] can be applied.
reactive loading for coupled-line filters, as a result of a series Fig. 2a shows a grounded coupled-line section of electrical
of research study of [6]. With the proposed method, a length θ with even- and odd-mode admittances Y0e and Y0o,
coupled-line filter can be miniaturised with a reduced whose equivalent circuit based on a transmission line and

1192 IET Microw. Antennas Propag., 2014, Vol. 8, Iss. 14, pp. 1192–1197
& The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2014 doi: 10.1049/iet-map.2014.0085
www.ietdl.org
following conditions can be derived to maintain an
equivalence of the grounded coupled-line section in Fig. 1a
with the J inverter loaded with the shunt resonators in Fig. 2c

Y0e = Yt − J sin u (4a)

Y0o = Yt + J sin u (4b)

However, this is unable to model the first coupled-line section


of the proposed filter in Fig. 1a, since the associated J inverter
in Fig. 1b accompanies only one resonator. Therefore, it must
be modelled as shown in Fig. 2d, where Y0 represents the port
admittance. Comparing the input admittances of the two, the
conditions of equivalence are derived as follows

Y0e = Y0 − J (5a)
Fig. 1 Schematic and equivalent circuit of the proposed filter
Y0o = Y0 + J (5b)
a Proposed miniaturised Nth-order filter based on shunt-capacitive loading
b General equivalent circuit of a bandpass filter [14]
J2
Yt = Y0 − (5c)
Y0
shunt resonators is shown in Fig. 2b. The characteristic
admittance of transmission line YC can be represented as [14] This also applies to the last coupled-line section.
Based on the two equivalent circuits of grounded
Y0o − Y0e coupled-line sections, the equivalent circuit in Fig. 3a can
YC = (1)
2 be constructed for the proposed miniaturised filters in
Fig. 1a. For comparison, the equivalent circuit of
miniaturised filters in [6] is shown in Fig. 3b. It is clear that
The circuit in Fig. 2b is equivalent to a J inverter with in Fig. 3b, both the first and the last resonators (B0, BN + 1)
consist of one stub and a shunt capacitor, and thus they
Y0o − Y0e must be different from the remaining resonators which
J= csc u (2) consist of two stubs and a shunt capacitor. Therefore the
2
previous reactively-loaded coupled-line filters in [6] cannot
which is loaded on both sides with shunt stubs of electrical be implemented with identical reactance at each section.
length θ and characteristic admittance As shown in Fig. 3a, the ith (i = 1, 2, … , N ) resonator in
the proposed filter consists of shunt stubs from the ith and
Y0o + Y0e (i + 1)th coupled-line sections as well as the shunt capacitor
Yt = (3) between the two. Therefore, the condition of resonance, that
2 is, Bi = 0 at the centre frequency ω0, is
as shown in Fig. 1c [7]. Therefore from (2) and (3), the
Yt,i + Yt,i+1
Ci = cot u (6)
v0

Finally, from (6), the following must be satisfied so that all the
capacitors become identical

Yt,1 = Yt,2 = · · · = Yt,N +1 = Ys (7)

where Ys is a constant. This condition also equalises all


susceptance slope parameters bi of all resonators.
From (4)–(7), the complete set of design equations is
obtained as follows

Y0e,i = Y0 − Ji−1,i (i = 1, N + 1) (8a)

Y0o,i = Y0 + Ji−1,i (i = 1, N + 1) (8b)

Y0e,i = Ys − Ji−1,i sin u (i = 2, . . . , N ) (8c)


Fig. 2 Equivalent circuits for a grounded coupled-line section
a Grounded coupled-line section and its equivalent circuits in filters Y0o,i = Ys + Ji−1,i sin u (i = 2, . . . , N ) (8d)
b With a transmission-line section
c With a J inverter for coupled-line sections in the middle 2Ys cot u
d With a J inverter for coupled-line sections at both ends C= (8e)
v0

IET Microw. Antennas Propag., 2014, Vol. 8, Iss. 14, pp. 1192–1197 1193
doi: 10.1049/iet-map.2014.0085 & The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2014
www.ietdl.org

Fig. 3 Equivalent circuits of shunt-capacitively loaded filters


a Proposed
b In [6]

where Z0o,i = Zs − Ki−1,i sin u (i = 2, . . . , N ) (9d)

Y0 2Zs cot u
Ys = L= (9e)
1 + D( cot u + u csc2 u)/g0 g1 v0

v0 dB(v)
b= = Ys ( cot u + u csc2 u) where
2 dv v0
 Zs =
Z0
DbY0 1 + D( cot u + u csc2 u)/g0 g1
Ji−1,i = (i = 1, N + 1)
gi−1 gi 
v dX (v)
x= 0 = Zs ( cot u + u csc2 u)
Db 2 dv v0
Ji−1,i = √ (i = 2, . . . , N )
gi−1 gi 
DxZ0
Δ is the fractional bandwidth, b is the susceptance slope Ki−1,i = (i = 1, N + 1)
gi−1 gi
parameter and gi is the element value of the prototype filter.
Similarly, a filter can be miniaturised by the dual structure
Dx
of Fig. 1a, which consists of N + 1 open-ended coupled lines Ki−1,i = √ (i = 2, . . . , N )
and N series inductors, as shown in Fig. 4. For the same gi−1 gi
specification, the two dual structures have exactly the same
magnitude responses. Consequently, the freedom to choose Z0 is the system impedance, and x is the reactance slope
between the two provides design flexibility that widens the parameter. For a given filter specification and a
practical range of filter specification that can be predetermined θ, a miniaturised filter can be designed with
miniaturised. The set of design equations is as follows (8) or (9).

Z0e,i = Z0 + Ki−1,i (i = 1, N + 1) (9a)

Z0o,i = Z0 − Ki−1,i (i = 1, N + 1) (9b)

Z0e,i = Zs + Ki−1,i sin u (i = 2, . . . , N ) (9c)

Fig. 5 Ideal simulation results of conventional and miniaturised


Fig. 4 Proposed Nth-order bandpass filter based on third-order Chebyshev-type filters, with 0.1-dB passband ripple
series-inductive loading level and 5% (thin line) or 10% (thick line) bandwidth

1194 IET Microw. Antennas Propag., 2014, Vol. 8, Iss. 14, pp. 1192–1197
& The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2014 doi: 10.1049/iet-map.2014.0085
www.ietdl.org
Fig. 5 compares ideal simulation results of conventional
and miniaturised filters. All coupled lines are 45° for the
two miniaturised filters. As evidenced by the figure, the
ideal responses of the miniaturised filters are in near perfect
agreement with those of corresponding conventional
counterparts based on l/4 lines, theoretically validating the
proposed method.
Fig. 6 shows examples of design curves for impedance and
reactance levels with various miniaturisation conditions.
While capacitive loading requires coupled lines with higher
impedance compared to the conventional counterpart,
inductive loading requires lower impedance compared to
the conventional counterpart. Therefore, the former is more
suitable for filters with coupled lines of high impedance,
although via holes may be required for grounding. A
higher miniaturisation rate requires higher reactance (or
susceptance), which may set a practical limitation of the Fig. 7 Effect of finite quality factor (Q) of inductors on passband
proposed method because of loss. To compensate for the response of inductively-loaded third-order Chebyshev filters with
identical and reduced number of reactive elements with 0.1-dB passband ripple and 10% bandwidth at 1 GHz
the same filter specification, the coupled lines of the Each section is miniaturised to 60°
All Q’s are calculated at 1 GHz.
proposed filters should have higher coupling coefficients,
than the ones in [6].
A critical factor that determines the filter performance is the requires lumped elements of higher reactance or
quality factors (Q) of the lumped elements. Fig. 7 shows the susceptance which generally have a lower Q. Therefore, a
effects of Q on passband responses of inductively-loaded smaller filter may exhibit increased passband insertion loss
third-order Chebyshev filters. Although all filters are (IL), which may set a practical limit on the proposed
miniaturised to the same length, a large difference in the method of miniaturisation.
passband insertion may be seen depending on Q of the Compared to the previous method [6], the number of
inductors. Although it is not shown here, a very similar reactive elements is reduced by two. Moreover, they have
trend is observed for shunt-capacitive loading as well. As the same reactance. Therefore, besides allowing the filters
the miniaturisation rate increases, the proposed method to exhibit lower loss, low-cost fabrication is enabled. Also,
performance is less affected by the tolerance of lumped
elements since all of them are identical. As a result, the
design procedure is simplified. Miniaturisation with
identical lumped elements is also enabled in [6] at the cost
of a more complicated design procedure that requires
miniaturising each section to a different length.
Furthermore, series or shunt connection of reactive elements
is required, negating the benefit of using identical lumped
elements. However, those connections are unnecessary in
the proposed method, effectively reducing the number of
reactive elements further.

3 Experimental Results
For experimental verification, two third-order
Chebyshev-type filters, with 0.1-dB passband ripple and
10% bandwidths, are designed with centre frequencies at
0.9 and 2.0 GHz. For both filters, all coupled-line sections
are miniaturised to 45°. The following is the design
procedure for Filter A. First, the even- and odd-mode
impedances of the first and the last coupled-line sections,
Z0e,1 = Z0e,4 = 72.33 Ω and Z0o,1 = Z0o,4 = 27.67 Ω, are
calculated with (9a) and (9b) for the given specification and
the miniaturisation condition. Then, the second step is to
calculate the even- and odd-mode impedances of the second
and third sections, Z0e,2 = Z0e,3 = 46.71 Ω and Z0o,2 = Z0o,3 =
33.34 Ω, with (9c) and (9d). Finally, the inductance of
14.16 nH is calculated with (9e). Filter B can be designed
in a similar way. If design parameters are impractical, they
Fig. 6 Design parameters with respect to miniaturisation length can be adjusted by changing the miniaturisation length. For
for third-order Chebyshev-type filter, with 0.1-dB passband ripple instance, as suggested in Fig. 6, if the impedance of the
level and 5% (thin line) or 10% bandwidth (thick line) coupled lines in a shunt-capacitively loaded filter is too
a Geometric mean of even-/odd-mode impedance high, then it can be decreased by increasing the
b Reactance or susceptance miniaturisation length. On the other hand, if the inductance

IET Microw. Antennas Propag., 2014, Vol. 8, Iss. 14, pp. 1192–1197 1195
doi: 10.1049/iet-map.2014.0085 & The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2014
www.ietdl.org

Fig. 8 Photograph of fabricated filters: Filter A (9.1 × 4.4 cm2) and Filter B (4.8 × 3.8 cm2)

Table 1 Design parameters for Filter A and Filter B


n Filter A [6] Filter B [6]

Z0e,n, Ω Z0o,n, Ω L, nH Z0e,n, Ω Z0o,n, Ω L, nH Z0e,n, Ω Z0o,n, Ω C, pF Z0e,n, Ω Z0o,n, Ω C, pF

0 – – – – – 6.81 – – – – – 1.12
1 72.33 27.67 14.16 72.60 36.91 13.60 90.36 34.56 2.55 116.79 51.02 2.11
2 46.71 33.34 14.16 47.52 34.36 13.60 74.99 53.52 2.55 95.85 68.89 1.99
3 46.71 33.34 14.16 47.52 34.36 13.60 74.99 53.52 2.55 95.85 68.89 2.11
4 72.33 27.67 – 72.60 36.91 6.81 90.36 34.56 – 116.79 51.02 1.12

is too low in a series-inductively loaded filter, then it can be also in good agreement with the ideal simulation results,
relieved by decreasing the length. demonstrating the practicality of the proposed method. For
Filter A, centred at 0.9 GHz, is miniaturised with surface comparison, the measured results for filters in [6] with the
mount device (SMD) series inductors, whereas Filter B, same specification are repeated in Fig. 9. Comparison
centred at 2 GHz, is miniaturised with shunt capacitors in
distributed forms. The distributed capacitors in Filter B
allow the filter to be bent for further size reduction, as
shown in Fig. 8. For both filters, all sections are
miniaturised to 45°, requiring L = 14.2 nH and C = 2.55 pF
for Filter A and B, respectively. Calculated design
parameters for each filter are summarized in Table 1. The
proposed method not only provides a great advantage of
reduced number of identical reactive elements, it also serves
as an alternative of [6] that allows miniaturisation of a filter
with coupled lines of higher coupling coefficients, as
mentioned in Section 2. This can be seen apparently by
comparing the impedances of coupled lines in Table 1, for
the same filter specification.
The filters are fabricated in the form of microstrips on an
RF-60A substrate from Taconic with ɛr = 6.15 and a
thickness of 1.52 mm. The layout is optimized with a
full-wave simulator to compensate for the parasitic effects
of lumped elements and junction discontinuities. As
compared to the conventional filters based on l/4 lines, the
miniaturisation factor is approximately 43% for Filter A and
about 41% for Filter B. In terms of size, filters developed
by the proposed and the previous [6] methods are similar.
Direct comparison of physical size is difficult because of
the different electrical parameters and the different
substrates that accommodate them. Despite the reduced
number of lumped elements used in the proposed method,
in practice, the degree of size reduction is not apparent.
This is because of the negligible size of SMD-type lumped
elements or the U-shaped layout with lumped elements in
distributed forms. Measurement is performed with an
MS4624D vector network analyzer from Anritsu, after
achieving line-reflect-line (LRL) calibration with a 36804B
calibration kit.
All results are shown in Fig. 9. For both filters, an Fig. 9 Measured (thick line) results compared with ideal and
outstanding agreement between the measured results and full-wave simulated (thin line) results
the full-wave simulation results can be evidenced. a Filter A
Moreover, the reflection characteristics of both filters are b Filter B

1196 IET Microw. Antennas Propag., 2014, Vol. 8, Iss. 14, pp. 1192–1197
& The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2014 doi: 10.1049/iet-map.2014.0085
www.ietdl.org
Table 2 Summary of experimental results 5 Acknowledgments
Loading θi, ° fc, FBW, ILmax,
GHz % dB
This research was funded by the MSIP (Ministry of Science,
ICT & Future Planning), Korea in the ICT R&D Program
inductive Filter A 45/45/45/45 0.905 9.8 3.3 2014, and by the National Research Foundation of Korea
(SMD) [6] 54.9/46.8/ 0.903 9.87 4.1 (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MEST) (No.
46.8/54.9 2011-0016802).
capacitive Filter B 45/45/45/45 1.96 10.3 1.2
(distributed) [6] 45/45/45/45 1.99 9.9 2.2

6 References
shows that the proposed method retains intact performance
1 Cheong, P., Fok, S.-W., Tam, K.-W.: ‘Miniaturized parallel coupled-line
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IET Microw. Antennas Propag., 2014, Vol. 8, Iss. 14, pp. 1192–1197 1197
doi: 10.1049/iet-map.2014.0085 & The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2014

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