Proceedings of Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference 2007

Ultra-Wideband Microstrip-Line Bandpass Filters with Good Out-of-Band Performance using EBGEmbedded Multiple-Mode Resonator
Sai Wai Wong, Lei Zhu*, and Sheng Sun
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore *Corresponding e-mail: ezhul@ntu.edu.sg

Abstract A class of ultra-wideband microstrip-line bandpass filters with improved out-of-band performance and miniaturized size is proposed and constituted using electromagnetic-bandgap (EBG) embedded multiple-mode resonator (MMR). This EBGembedded MMR is at first studied, aiming to relocate its first three resonant modes within the 3.1-10.6GHz UWB passband while inhibiting its 5th resonant mode in the upper frequency range. Moreover, the coupling zero of external coupled-lines is properly adjusted to cancel the excitation of the 4th resonator of this MMR. A single-stage bandpass filter is then investigated to initially demonstrate the improved UWB bandpass behavior. Afterwards, two- and three-stage bandpass filters are designed to further sharpen out-of-band rejection skirts and deepen lower/upper stopbands as required by FCC-defined UWB mask. Finally, three filter samples are fabricated and tested. It is shown that the measured results are well matched to the predicted ones in terms of insertion/return losses and group delay over the plotted frequency range of 1.0 to 20.0GHz. Keywords- UWB bandpass filter, electromagnetic band-gap (EBG), out-of-band, and multiple-mode resonator.

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(b) Fig. 1. Proposed ultra-wideband microstrip-line bandpass filter with three EBG-embedded multiple-mode resonators. (a) geometry and (b) equivalent cascaded topology.

I. INTRODUCTION As the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) in USA released the unlicensed use of ultra-wideband (UWB: 3.1 to 10.6 GHz) frequency spectrum for indoor and hand-held wireless communications in 2002 [1], a tremendous research activity has been carried out to explore one of key UWB circuit blocks, that is, UWB bandpass filters with a fractional frequency bandwidth of about 110% at the central frequency (6.85GHz) [2-9]. The first reported UWB bandpass filter is a dual-stopband filter and it is formed by cascading several microstrip ring resonators with loaded open stubs [2]. Later on, various UWB bandpass filters are presented by connecting a lowpass filter with a highpass filter on microstrip line [3] and suspended stripline [4], directly cascading microstrip-tocoplanar-waveguide (CPW) broadside-coupling structures [5] and non-periodically interrupting a uniform microstrip line with short-circuited stubs [6]. In parallel, the concept of a multiple-mode resonator (MMR) with stepped-impedance configuration is originally reported in [7], where its first three resonant modes work together with two distributed parallelcoupled lines to make a novel class of ultra-wide bandpass filters. In [8], a tapered coupled line topology is presented to allocate its coupling zero to the 4th-order or 1st harmonic resonant frequency, thus somehow raising the upper-end of the

concerned upper-stopband from 13.8 to 15.9 GHz [8]. Very recently, a multi-stage wideband filter [9] is designed and implemented based on the so-called multimode steppedimpedance resonators, exhibiting 50% dominant passband and extremely wide upper-stopband. Nevertheless, all the reported UWB bandpass filters in [2][9] are still embarrassed by the existence of a narrow upperstopband due to periodical appearance of multiple passbands in all these transmission-line-resonator based filter blocks. Plus, all of these filters are electrically large in size, which is impractical in the implementation of hand held UWB devices. To circumvent these problems, a periodic structure with shuntcapacitive loading, i.e., electromagnetic bandgap (EBG) microstrip-line structure [10] is utilized to replace the lowimpedance wide strip section in the initial MMR [7], aiming to construct an EBG-embedded MMR and further to apply it for exploring various multiple-stage UWB bandpass filters with improved out-of-band performances. Fig. 1(a) and 1(b) depict the geometry and equivalent topology of a three-stage UWB bandpass filter. In the remaining part of this paper, three UWB filters with one-, two- and three-stage MMRs are designed using the Agilent ADS-Momentum software and they are implemented on the RT/Duroid 6010 substrate with a dielectric constant of 10.8 and a thickness of 0.635 mm. In final, three filter samples are fabricated to provide an experimental validation on the predicted UWB bandpass behaviors over a wide frequency range.

1-4244-0749-4/07/$20.00 @2007 IEEE.

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(a)

Fig. 3. Photographs of three fabricated ultra-wideband microstripline bandpass filters.

(b) Fig. 2. Ultra-wideband microstrip-line bandpass filter with 1-stage EBG-embedded multiple-mode resonator. (a) geometry and (b) simulated frequency responses under varied coupled-line lengths d.

lines (PCMLs). Fig. 2(b) depicts the frequency response of simulated S21-magnitude under varied coupled-line lengths, i.e., d=0.6 and 4.3mm, respectively. The former graph is plotted to show the existence and location of the first five resonant modes of a single resonator. As discussed in [7], one can understand that the first three resonant frequencies, ranged in the 3.1-10.6GHz band, can be properly adjusted to work together, aiming to make up the desired UWB passband. As the coupled-line length (d) increases, the S21-magnitude curve in the UWB band gradually rises up towards the ideal 0dB line. Fig. 2(b) shows that an ultra-wide passband is realized under the case of d=4.3mm and its bandwidth is mainly decided by the resonant frequencies of the 1st- and 3rd-order modes [7]. In the meantime, the 4th-order mode occurs around 12.7GHz that is close to the coupling zero of two interdigital PCMLs. Thus, the spurious passband due to this 4th-order mode can be effectively eliminated as illustrated in Fig. 2(b). As studied in [10], the EBG structure in the constituted MMR has three open-circuited stubs can produce a preferable guidedwave bandgap frequency range or stopband. For the EBG with dimensions shown in Fig. 2(b), the bandgap or bandstop ranges from 16.3 to >20.0GHz and the relevant S21-magnitude at the 5th-order mode can be reasonably reduced by making effective use of the wave attenuation in the bandgap [10]. As a consequence, an extremely wide upper stopband, covering 11.0 to 20.0GHz, is realized with an insertion loss higher than 20.0dB. III. MULTIPLE-STAGE UWB BANDPASS FILTERS

II. EBG-EMBEDDED RESONATOR AND UWB FILTER As shown in Fig. 1(a), the three-stage UWB filter is formed by cascading input feed line, three EBG-embedded multiplemode resonator (MMR) and output feed line via distributed parallel-coupled microstrip lines (PCMLs). According to the description in our previous works [7-8], the first three resonant modes of the constituted MMR need to be placed within the specified UWB passband, whereas the two PCML lines are readily modeled to allocate the first maximum coupling degree around the center of the concerned UWB passband, i.e., 6.85GHz. Different from the initial MMR [7] with wide strip width in the middle, the proposed EBG-embedded MMR is formed by attaching three open-circuited stubs with the highimpedance microstrip line in the middle. The equal lengths of these stubs need to be properly chosen so as to quasi-equally allocate the first three resonant modes within the 3.1-10.6GHz UWB passband while producing a wide bandstop above the dominant passband to suppress unwanted spurious passbands caused by high-order resonant modes. Now, lets start to have a look at the operating principle of the proposed EBG-embedded MMR and multiple-stage UWB bandpass filter through the numerical modeling of a singlestage MMR filter structures shown in Fig. 2(a). The EBGembedded MMR is firstly constituted and it is then linked with two 50- feed lines via interdigital parallel-coupled microstrip

In this section, three UWB microstrip-line bandpass filters with one-, two- and three-stage EBG-embedded MMRs are designed, implemented and fabricated. In design, two adjacent EBG-embedded MMRs are capacitively coupled via parallelcoupled microstrip lines (PCMLs). The coupling-gap spacing and coupled-line length of these PCMLs are properly adjusted, aiming to achieve high return loss (>10dB) within the UWB passband while effectively eliminating the 4th-mode-caused harmonic passband. The final layouts of these optimized filters can be found from the photographs of the three fabricated

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UWB bandpass filters as shown in Fig.3. The overall length of 1-stage filter is only 12.5 mm, that is much smaller than that of the initial UWB filter reported in [7], due to the slow-wave behavior of the EBG section in center. In this aspect, the overall lengths of the 2- and 3-stage filters are equal to about 20.6mm and 28.8mm, respectively. Fig. 4(a) and 4(b) are the simulated frequency responses of S21- and S11-magnitudes as well as group delays for the three optimized UWB filters shown in Fig. 3. As can be found from Fig. 4(a), the dominant ultra-wide passband of 3.1-10.6GHZ is satisfactorily achieved in all the three cases and the return loss in the concerned UWB passband is all higher than 12.0dB. These results convince us that these proposed EBG-embedded resonators can be utilized to make up a modified class of UWB bandpass filters with extended upper-stopband. As the stage number is increased from 1 to 2 and 3, the out-of-band rejection skirts in both lower and upper stopbands get sharpened quickly, thus taking a step towards the FCC-defined UWB mask. Fig. 4(b) illustrates that the group delay in the UWB passband rises up as the stage number increases due to the stretched overall length. Its shape is very flat in the middle

frequency range, but becomes tremendously varied as the frequency is moved to the lower and upper edges of an achieved passband. In particular, the group-delay variation in these frequency edges becomes larger and larger as more resonators are employed. It is predominantly caused by an inevitable tradeoff between the rejection skirt and group delay, existed in any microwave filter block. Fig. 5(a) and 5(b) show the measured frequency responses of S21- and S11-magnitudes as well as group delay. They are found in very reasonable agreement with the predicted results plotted in Fig. 4(a) and 4(b), thereby confirming the successful realization of a few improved UWB bandpass filters with sharpened out-of-band rejection skirts and extended upperstopband. The insertion and return losses at the UWB center (i.e., 6.85GHz) are lower than 1.5dB and higher than 20dB, respectively. Unfortunately, we still can find slight discrepancies between the simulated and measured results, displayed in Fig. 4(a) and Fig. 5(a). In fact, in order to realize a tight coupling degree of coupled lines as inquired in the UWB filter design, the coupling gap or spacing is usually ranged between 0.025 and 0.075mm and it is too small to be

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(b) Fig. 4. Predicted frequency responses of three ultra-wideband bandpass filters. (a) scattering-matrix magnitudes and (b) group delays

(b) Fig. 5. Measured frequency responses of three ultra-wideband bandpass filters. (a) scattering-matrix magnitudes and (b) group delays

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accurately fabricated using the commercially available etching process. In addition, the conductor thickness of ~0.02mm is not negligibly small in the case of narrow strip and gap widths, i.e., 0.05mm and 0.10mm, thus affecting the measured performances of the fabricated filters to a certain degree. IV. CONCLUSION In this work, a class of UWB microstrip-line bandpass filters with good out-of-band performances is proposed, designed and implemented by forming an EBG-embedded multiple-mode resonator (MMR) and cascading these MMRs via parallel-coupled microstrip lines (PCMLs). This MMR is firstly studied to quasi-equally allocate its first three resonant modes within the concerned 3.1-10.6GHz UWB passband while placing its 4th-order resonant mode close to the coupling zero of the employed interdigital PCMLs. Furthermore, the EBG line section itself is characterized to produce a wide bandstop that covers the 5th-order mode of the constituted MMR. A single-stage UWB filter is then investigated to demonstrate this improved UWB passband performances. Afterwards, the two UWB filters with 2- and 3-stage EBGembedded MMRs are optimally designed, fabricated and tested. Measured results have very reasonably validated the predicted results in terms of insertion/return losses and group delays over a frequency range of 1.0 to 20.0GHz. It is demonstrated in simulation and experiment that a wide upperstopband of 11.8~ 20.0GHz is achieved with the insertion loss higher than 20dB, whereas the out-of-band rejection skirts in both lower and upper sides become sharper and sharper as the number of MMRs increases. The group delay has a flat shape in the middle range of the achieved UWB passband and its value rises up as more MMRs are utilized.

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Federal Communications Commission, Revision of part 15 of the commissions rules regarding ultra-wideband transmission systems, Tech. Rep., ET-Docket 98-153, FCC02-48, April 2002. [2] H. Ishida and K. Araki, Design and analysis of UWB bandpass filter, 2003 IEEE Topical Conf. on Wireless Comm. Tech., October 2003, pp. 457-458. [3] C. L. Hsu, F. C. Hsu, and J. T. Kuo, Microstrip bandpass filters for ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless communications, 2005 IEEE MTT-S Int. Microwave Symp. Dig., June 2005, pp. 679-682. [4] W. Menzel, M. S. R. Tito, and L. Zhu, Low-loss ultra-wideband (UWB) filters using suspended stripline, 2005 Asia-Pacific Microwave Conf. Proc., vol. 4, December 2005, pp. 2148-2151. [5] K. Li, D. Kurita, and T. Matsui, An ultra-wideband bandpass filter using broadside-coupled microstrip-coplanar waveguide structure, 2005 IEEE MTT-S Int. Microwave Symp. Dig., June 2005, pp. 675-678. [6] J. -S. Hong and H. Shaman, An optimum ultra-wideband microstrip filter Microwave Optical Tech. Lett., vol. 47, no. 3, November 2005, pp. 230-233. [7] L. Zhu, S. Sun and W. Menzel, Ultra-wideband (UWB) bandpass filters using multiple-mode resonator, IEEE Microwave Wireless Compon. Lett., vol. 15, no. 11, November 2005, pp. 796-798. [8] S. Sun and L. Zhu, Capacitive-ended interdigital coupled lines for UWB bandpass filters with improved out-of-band performances, IEEE Microwave Wireless Compon. Lett., vol. 16, no. 8, August 2006, pp. 440-442. [9] Y.-C. Chiou, J.-T. Kuo and E. Cheng, Broadband quasi-Chebyshev bandpass filters with multimode stepped-impedance resonators (SIRs), IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory & Tech., vol. 54, no. 8, August 2006, pp. 3352-3358. [10] L. Zhu, Guided-wave characteristics of periodic microstrip lines with inductive loading: slow-wave and bandstop behaviours, Microwave Optical Tech. Lett., vol.41, no.2, April 2004, pp. 77-79. [1]

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