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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 62, NO.

12, DECEMBER 2014 2911

Coupled-Line Filters With Stub-Embedded


Resonators Using Accurate Admittance-Transformer
Feeds for Flexible Terminations
Shih-Cheng Lin, Member, IEEE

Abstract—Accurate admittance-transformer (Y-TF) feeds along open-wire-line equivalent models. The filters [9], [10] on the
with short-circuited stub-embedded resonators (SCSERs) are pro- foundation of anti-PCLs (both short and open ended) can be an-
posed in this study to design the improved parallel coupled-line alyzed based on similar concepts aforementioned. As a whole,
(PCL) filters with structure-inherent transmission zeros (TZs). The
proposed Y-TF feeds for flexible terminations are thoroughly an- PCLs play a profound role in history of bandpass filter (BPF)
alyzed and found more accurate than conventional approximate development [11]–[14].
tapped-line feedings. Specifically, two basic parallel-coupled band- When carefully investigating Cohn’s filter structure, there ex-
pass filters with conventional stepped-impedance resonators ists some inherent restrictions especially on the I/O feeding im-
are first successfully implemented to validate the proposed Y-TF plementation. Since the PCL section is modeled by an immit-
feedings. The ideal frequency responses of the two filters by a cir-
cuit simulator are compared with those transformed from the cou- tance inverter with two transmission lines (TLs) of character-
pling matrix. Furthermore, an SCSER-based filter with multiple istic impedance connected on each side, the sections adja-
TZs is designed to verify the feasibility of the described design cent to I/O ports necessarily possess the equal to the system
procedure. The adopted resonating components are composed of impedance (usually 50 ). It implies that we are not al-
two short-circuited stepped-impedance stubs and multiple open- lowed to choose the reference impedances of end PCL sections,
circuited ones all extended from a common joining point. The inter-
stage couplings of the filter are achieved by the short-ended PCLs, which bear the strongest coupling than others. Once the even/
while the input/output couplings are realized by the proposed Y-TF odd-mode impedances cannot be adjusted by selecting the ref-
feedings. Through the fabrication of the proposed filters, the mea- erence impedances, it may result in the PCL spacing too narrow
sured results along with the simulated ones validate the theoretical to be implemented in an economic printed circuit board (PCB)
derivations. process. Matthaei [7] took advantage of additional quarter-wave
Index Terms—Admittance transformer, coupled-resonator filter, transformers attached on I/O sides to realize the tight cou-
parallel-coupled line (PCL), tapped-line feed, transmission zero plings that are not practical for the PCLs, but those derived for-
(TZ).
mulas and design examples only applicable for coupled lines of
coupled lengths. Moreover, the tapped-line feeds [15]–[17]
I. INTRODUCTION provide an alternative solution for I/O feedings, but the ex-
traction method of external quality factors considers the singly

B ANDPASS filters based on parallel-coupled lines (PCLs)


have been widely studied for years and adopted in many
applications due to their simple structure and repeatability [1].
loaded resonators, and thus does not take the loading effects
caused by adjacent resonators into account. However, there are
amazingly numerous works in the literature, e.g., [18]–[22], es-
Among the various design approaches, the most intuitive one pecially those published over the recent two decades, adopting
should be Cohn’s concept [2] proposed early in 1958 and was the tapped-line feeds for filter design. Since certain approxima-
extended by Makimoto and Yamashita [3] to implement the fil- tions are made in designing those filters, the tuning by an elec-
ters using open-ended parallel-coupled lines (OE-PCLs) of any tromagnetic (EM) simulator to compensate the inherent perfor-
coupled lengths. Since then, the extended methodology is exten- mance deterioration is required, thus lengthen the design cycle.
sively used [4], [5]. In addition, the short-ended parallel-coupled For the conventional PCL filters, there are no extra transmis-
line (SE-PCL) sections are other choices for bandpass design [6] sion zeros (TZs) adjacent to the passband for improving the se-
by means of a similar approach as Makimoto’s. There are also lectivity or at specified frequencies for stopband attenuation, ex-
works treating OE-PCLs [7] and SE-PCLs [8] with alternative cept for those located in a higher band inherent from the cou-
pling nature of PCL structures. Various approaches are proposed
Manuscript received April 12, 2014; revised July 15, 2014; accepted to create additional TZs around the passband, e.g., cascaded tri-
September 21, 2014. Date of publication October 20, 2014; date of current section/cascaded-quadruplet (CT/CQ) topology utilizing cross-
version December 02, 2014. This work was supported by the National Science
coupled characteristics [19]–[22], the extraction-pole method
Council of Taiwan under Grant NSC 102-2221-E-415-002-MY3 and Grant
NSC 102-2221-E-194-016-MY3. [23], source–load coupling [24], a 0 feed structure [25], or
The author is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, National Chiayi other TZ-introducing mechanisms [26]–[28]. Those filters de-
University, Chiayi 60004, Taiwan (e-mail: sclin@mail.ncyu.edu.tw).
veloped in [19]–[24] usually concern producing additional cou-
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. pling paths, thus the coupling matrix needs to be resynthesized
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMTT.2014.2361340 to maintain the targeted filter response. Certain works [25]–[28]

0018-9480 © 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
2912 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 62, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2014

Fig. 2. SE-PCL section served as the admittance inverter


in Fig. 1(b) ( and
).

Fig. 1. Generalized inverter-based coupled-resonator BPF using: (a) sym-


metric resonators and (b) asymmetric resonators.

skillfully use special coupling mechanisms or feeding struc-


tures to achieve TZ creation without necessitating extra cou-
pling paths. However, those aforementioned methods [18]–[28]
may not easily be applied in BPFs based on regular PCLs of
inline direct-coupled topology since most of the works require
skillful resonator arrangements, alternative coupling structures
of inverse polarities, or additional coupling paths. It is a poten-
tial research topic to bring about the TZs and still maintain the
inline simplicity of PCL filters. On the other hand, one may con-
veniently employ typical Chebyshev or Butterworth coupling
and routing configurations without requiring resynthesis of the
coupling matrix.
Fig. 3. Even- and odd-mode characteristic impedances of th
In this study, a new accurate admittance-transformer (Y-TF) PCL sections with both reference admittance and inverter value
feeding scheme distinct from the previous tapped-line feeding as parameters ( , , ,
method possessing a certain approximation is investigated, the ).
proposed approach can be used to convert the arbitrary source
and load admittances ( and ) to the required admittance
level and possesses well-developed design formulas. The Y-TF
feeds are found useful in designing filters using short-circuited
resonators. Moreover, to create multiple structure-inherent TZs
without influencing the inline direct-coupled topology and to
keep the layout simplicity of PCL filters, the new short-circuited
stub-embedded resonators (SCSERs) are proposed to serve as
resonating components. Several filters are designed and imple-
mented to validate the developed theory and design procedure.

II. GENERAL INVERTER-BASED BPF


Exhibited in Fig. 1(a) is the conventional inverter-based cou-
pled-resonator filter using symmetric lumped-element LC res- Fig. 4. Conventional fourth-order parallel-coupled resonator filter using all
onators [1]. Apparently, the susceptance slope parameters of identical SIRs. (a) Circuit schematic. (b) Singly loaded resonator. (c) Interstage
coupling using SE-PCL.
the individual isolated resonator observed from both the left-
handed side (LHS) and right-handed side (RHS) are exactly the
same. However, to release the design flexibility, the utilized res-
onators can be designed with asymmetric susceptances, i.e., the with (1b)
resonator behaviors are different as seen from opposite sides.
With the filter specification (including filter order , center where denotes the th low-pass prototype parameters, and
frequency , fractional bandwidth , and demanded filter re- and represent the susceptance slopes seen from RHS
sponse) provided, the filter design parameters for the general- and LHS, respectively. The inverter values can be related to
ized th-order filter using asymmetric resonators can be calcu- the external quality factors and coupling coefficients
lated as by

and
(2a)
(1a)
LIN: COUPLED-LINE FILTERS WITH STUB-EMBEDDED RESONATORS 2913

Fig. 5. Equivalent-circuit model of the coupled-resonator filter in Fig. 4(a).

and
(2b)

The required building blocks for the proposed filter will be


thoroughly discussed in the following sections.

III. SE-PCLs
Fig. 6. Equivalent-circuit model of the interstage coupling using the SE-PCL
The SE-PCL sections shown in Fig. 2 are good candidates of shown in Fig. 4(c) .
interstage immittance inverters for the filter targeting on narrow
to moderate bandwidth due to its flexible coupling amount.
Among the PCL filter, each th SE-PCL section of signed first. Then, extract the I/O external quality factors
even- and odd-mode characteristic admittances, and in and based on Fig. 4(b),
Fig. 3, used for interstage coupling can be modeled [1] by an ad-
mittance inverter attached with two shunt short-circuited stubs (5)
while the 1:1 transformer only affects the transmission phase,
and thus can be neglected in the filter design. By providing the where is the susceptance slope of the SIR adjacent to
coupled length , the preferable reference admittance , the input/output end with the port tapped at the position with
and the inverter value from filter parameters, the and respect to ground. Finally, the inverter value modeled
of the th PCL section, are available as in Fig. 6 can be calculated by (2). The slope parameter is
evaluated as
(3a)
(3b)

As can be derived, the th inverter is determined by both the


length and the admittance as
(6)
with (4)
Based on Hong’s method, a sample filter at GHz
Based on (3), an auxiliary graph for impedances ( , ) is designed with a 0.01-dB-ripple Chebyshev response of
of the th PCL section with predetermined coupled length . The associated element values of the low-pass prototype are
is drawn in Fig. 3 using and as
parameters for demonstration. For arbitrary coupled length, the . With the given filter specification, the corre-
graph can be easily recalculated. sponding external quality factors and coupling coefficients
are and ,
IV. ISSUE OF CONVENTIONAL TAPPED-LINE FEEDING . The impedance of the SIR are selected
The key concept of coupled-resonator theory is that one may as while the length ratio equals 0.5. As a result,
independently extract the external quality factors and coupling the resonance condition leads to . With
coefficients and then construct the filters. Exhibited in Figs. 4(a) regard to the coupled-line sections, all the coupled lengths are
and 5 are the typical fourth-order filter using short-circuited chosen identical, i.e., . The susceptance
stepped-impedance resonators (SIRs) with tapped-line feedings slope of each resonator is 0.04386 S. The conventional
and its equivalent. The schematics for the singly loaded res- tapped-line feeding based on a singly loaded external quality
onator and interstage coupling using an SE-PCL are presented factor of the end resonator can be evaluated by (5), which
in Fig. 4(b) and (c), respectively. For discussion convenience, gives . Furthermore, it leads to the three coupled
all four SIRs composing the filter are designed symmetric sections of
with identical admittance ratio and length ratio and . This sample filter is
while reference admittance is equal simulated using the schematic presented in Fig. 4(a) and the
to [16] and coupled length . In ac- corresponding frequency responses are shown in Fig. 7. As
cordance with the conventional and also the most popular cou- can be observed, the inband response of the demonstrated filter
pled-resonator design approach summarized by Hong and Lan- detunes seriously in comparison with the ideal one transformed
caster [17], the resonance of the isolated resonator should be de- from the coupling matrix [29].
2914 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 62, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2014

Fig. 7. Comparison of the -parameters generated from the circuit simulation


using Fig. 4(a) (Ckt) and those transformed from the coupling matrix (Matrix).

Fig. 9. Input admittance annotated in Fig. 8 versus frequency.

admittance level. With a short-ended stub shunt with the termi-


nation and then through two cascaded TLs, the input ad-
mittance of this feeding structure can be calculated as
Fig. 8. Input feeding portion of Fig. 4(a) for discussing the issue of conven-
tional tapped-line feeding.
(8a)

The poor frequency performances can be explained as fol- with


lows. For the I/O tapped-line feedings shown in Fig. 4(a), the ex-
traction is based on the singly loaded quality factor . When (8b)
the singly loaded resonator is further incorporated in the overall
filter design, the equivalent circuit to the LHS of the inverter and
can be modeled as Fig. 8. Obviously, is zero because of (8c)
the resonance. To maintain the overall resonance, the reac-
tive component must equal zero as well. Equivalently, It is a reasonable and convenient assumption (but not necessary)
at , it should lead to the relationship to set and . We then have to force the sus-
ceptance , i.e., the corresponding imaginary part
resonate at the center frequency to guarantee the effective
with and resonator 1 resonate as seen from the LHS . As a
(7) result, the susceptance slope of can be expressed
as
However, for the conventional tapped-line feeding approach
(i.e., , ), one can easily identify (9)
that does not vanish at , as shown in Fig. 9. The nonzero
susceptance destructs the resonance at the center frequency, where is defined as the frequency variable. This additional
and thus implies that the independent design of external quality susceptance component of resonator behavior could be modeled
factors exits critical defect. That is the reason why the conven- as a shunt LC tank with input susceptance expressed by
tional tapped-line feeding technique is just an approximation
and further tuning lack of accurate target circuit is required (10)
after the regular design approach.
to imitate its effect. The overall susceptance observed from the
LHS of resonator 1 in Fig. 11 is the shunt combination of the
V. TRANSFORMER FEEDINGS FOR FLEXIBLE TERMINATIONS
LC tank and the partial end -SIR. The LHS susceptance pa-
Here, a different thought about tapped-line I/O feeding struc- rameter is
tures is adopted. Shown in Fig. 10 is the revised version of the
coupled-resonator filter by using the proposed transformer feed- (11)
ings, as exhibited in Fig. 11. Although the circuit model seems
where here denoting the LHS susceptance slope parameter
identical to that shown in Fig. 5, it is not true because three line
of the SIR shown in Fig. 11 can be analytically evaluated
sections within the Y-TF feeding structure will be carefully re-
by
considered. Considering the feeding at input end without losing
generality, initially assume and
to facilitate the discussion. Our target is to convert
the arbitrary system termination to the desired (12)
LIN: COUPLED-LINE FILTERS WITH STUB-EMBEDDED RESONATORS 2915

Fig. 10. Circuit schematic of the parallel-coupled resonator BPF ( , ) using the proposed admittance-transformer feeds (
, , , if the BPF is symmetric).

Fig. 12. Design graph for and with both and as parameters
Fig. 11. Equivalent circuit of the proposed admittance-transformer feed (Y-TF
( , , , , S;
feed) for arbitrary termination admittance .
, ).

the required as 10.18. The corresponding of


In dealing with the inverter-based coupled-resonator BPF, the input feed solved are (18.996 , 15.555 ) for , which
input coupling has to satisfy the following conditions: are obviously different from those derived through the conven-
tional tapped-line approach in Section IV. The calculated
where (13) and using both and as parameters are exhibited in
Fig. 12 as the design graph with fixed and
Since the level may be selected arbitrarily, based on the for- equal to 0.0157 S. Significantly, the impedance
mula aforementioned, one may infer the following simultaneous can be flexibly chosen depending on layout convenience. The
equations by eliminating : input admittance of the selected and constant
is drawn in Fig. 13 to verify . Besides, the
(14a) proposed Y-TF feed has the ability to transforming any reason-
with able source/load resistance provided that (14)/(15) are sat-
isfied. The design chart for and using both and
(14b) as parameters with fixed is illustrated
in Fig. 14.
Similarly, the equations for Y-TF feed of the output port can We are allowed to choose the th coupled-line section with
also be derived by eliminating as appropriate reference admittance and coupled length .
and (15) The admittances and electrical lengths for the TL can then
be found by satisfying the resonance condition of individual
By applying the system source/load terminations and SIR and partial SIR. The resonance conditions to the LHS
, predetermined input external quality factors and and RHS of are met based on the proposed Y-TF
and preferable line admittance and into (14) feeding. In addition, the PCL sections adjacent to I/O ports will
and (15), the lengths for both input and output also be affected by the effective end resonators.
Y-TF feeds can be individually solved. On the foundation of the approach discussed thus far, two
For example, concerning a filter centering at 1.5 GHz using symmetric fourth-order filters (A1 and A2) with (
SIRs with resonator parameters as (90 , 36 , , , GHz, , 0.01-dB-ripple Cheby-
0.5) and the resultant slope parameters of partial end -SIRs shev response) are implemented to demonstrate the accuracy of
S, for input feed is set as 90 and the proposed Y-TF feeds. The design information required are
2916 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 62, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2014

Fig. 13. Susceptance and reactance of the Y-TF feed in Fig. 11


versus frequency with fixed and varying according
to Fig. 12.
Fig. 15. Narrowband comparison between the circuit-model simulated results
of the PCL filter using Y-TF feeds and the results obtained from the ideal cou-
pling matrix for 0.01-dB-ripple Chebyshev response.

Fig. 14. Design graph for and with both and as parameters
( , , , , S;
, ).

Fig. 16. Photograph of the fabricated filters A1 and A2.


TABLE I
DESIGN INFORMATION OF THE PROPOSED FOURTH-ORDER FILTERS A1 AND A2
Fig. 15 agree well with the coupling matrix results in terms of
bandwidth and return loss. The discrepancies in passand ripple
level and center frequencies may be attributed to the dispersion
characteristics of distributed elements.
The circuit photograph and experimental results are exhibited
in Figs. 16 and 17. The measurement was carried out by R&S
ZVB20 network analyzer. The measured and simulated results
coincide well, except for slight passband shift contributed by
fabrication error. Table II concludes the measured results for
both filters. Exhibited in Fig. 18 are the wideband measured
and simulated transmission coefficients of filters A1 and A2.
tabulated in Table I. The difference of the two filters mainly lies The lower transmission around the spurious band (6.82 GHz) of
in the feedings. In filter A1, we choose filter-A2 may result from the misaligment of the first harmonics
and in alignment with the conventional BPF using of resonators and resonators [30].
all identical SIRs examined in Section IV. The corresponding To reveal the powerfulness of the proposed Y-TF feeding
( and ) pairs for both I/O ports are identical and can in transforming arbitrary terminations, another sample filter-B
be obtained from Fig. 13. On the other hand, in filter A2, we with and and exactly the same
alternatively set and . As a assigned parameters of filter-A1 as listed in Table I is designed.
result, the and can be calculated based on (8)–(15). The derived parameters are almost the same with those of
The circuit-model simulation results of both filters displayed in filter-A1, except for (see
LIN: COUPLED-LINE FILTERS WITH STUB-EMBEDDED RESONATORS 2917

filter [13] while the design formulas are not readily available.
The feeding structure of the PCL filter in [14] is obtained based
on Kuroda transformation, which may lead to unreasonable
high line impedance impractical in fabrication.

VI. SCSERs
When adopting SE-PCLs as interstage couplings among the
BPF, the short-circuited resonator will naturally become the
inner resonator created between ( )th and th SE-PCL sec-
tions, as depicted in Fig. 6. As shown in Fig. 19(a), the open-
ended stubs can be inserted at some midpoint of the res-
onator to achieve TZ generation. Note that the short-ended stub
of admittance is contributed by the th
PCL section on the LHS while the one of admittance
is from the th PCL section on the RHS. To enhance the
design flexibility, the reference admittances of PCL sections can
be selected different. For example, the sections adjacent to I/O
ends can be chosen with lower reference admittances to enhance
the coupling under the fabrication restriction. The resultant res-
onator is called the SCSER and can be asymmetric in this study.
As for the end resonators 1 and adjacent to input/output ports,
which are resonators of the same type, only a single stub is em-
Fig. 17. Measured and EM simulated -parameters of filters. (a) A1. (b) A2. bedded in each resonator for design convenience.

A. TZ Due to Open-Ended Stubs


TABLE II
MEASURED PASSBAND PERFORMANCES OF FILTER-A1 AND A2 As is well known, the open-ended stub can generate TZs at
desired frequency whenever its shunt admittance reaches infi-
nite. Consider a stub with electrical length at frequency
, the frequencies of fundamental and harmonic TZs can
be predicted by

(16)

As long as one may place the stubs along the main transmis-
sion path of a filter, the filter may possess additional TZs, which
can enhance the attenuation at specific frequencies. Therefore,
an th SCSER with open-ended stubs attached at the common
“mid” point at least produces the multiple TZs of number at
, where . As for the input and
output end resonators, a single open-ended stub shunt with an
additional susceptance block is attached on the open end of outer
resonators. The two open-ended stubs can contribute two more
Fig. 18. Wideband measured and EM simulated transmission coefficients TZs in the filter response.
of filters A1 and A2 (red line (in online version): filter A1, blue line (in online
version): filter A2). B. Resonator Characteristics
For the utilized resonators, by assigning the demanded
Fig. 14) of input feed and . and of each resonator, the LHS and
The simulated results show good frequency response as well RHS admittance ratios are defined as
and are omitted here.
Comparatively speaking, the Y-TF feed with systematic and (17)
derivations owns the flexibility of choosing and for
arbitrary terminal impedance. In [12], the coupled line for Note that every resonator may adopt different admittance ratios.
I/O coupling is treated as a TL and a series inductor. The Hence, the input susceptances seen from the LHS and RHS
quasi-lumped equivalence may not be suitable for higher fre- of resonators in Fig. 19 ( and of resonator ; and
quency. The modified PCLs are used for feedings of tunable of resonator 1; and of resonator ) may be
2918 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 62, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2014

Fig. 19. SCSER. (a) Inner SCSER served as the th resonator (resonators 2 to ). The resonator number of each inner SCSER can be different. (All the
resonators are designed with resonant frequency and .) (b) Input-end SCSER with additional shunt susceptance from input feed.
(c) Output-end SCSER with additional shunt susceptance from output feed.

Fig. 20. Proposed fourth-order PCL BPF with multiple, i.e., (5 1), TZs using the proposed Y-TF feeds based on the SCSERs. Resonators 1, 2, and 4 totally
provide three TZs, while resonator 3 contribute the other three TZs. (The four resonator possess identical and TL segments for design
simplicity).

evaluated with the aid of the Appendix and their related slope TABLE III
parameters can be obtained as well. Note that the reason why TZ PLANNING OF THE PROPOSED PCL FILTER IN FIG. 20
we should carefully distinguish the input admittances from LHS
and RHS of any resonators is that those resonators in Fig. 19
can in general be made asymmetric, thus releasing the design
flexibility. Eventually, all the design parameters required for the
proposed PCL filter are well prepared.

VII. DESIGN OF PARALLEL-COUPLED BPF WITH


ACCURACY-IMPROVED ADMITTANCE TRANSFORMER FEEDS
to th stubs and then solve the left . As for
In designing a PCL filter (check the one in Fig. 20 for refer- end resonators 1 and , only the characteristic admittances
ence) based on SCSERs and the Y-TF feeds, the design proce- and of open-ended stubs are now left. By applying
dure is described in detail as follows. the corresponding design parameters including and
1) Determine the filter specification (e.g., , , etc.). The into (A1)–(A4), and can be acquired to en-
desired TZ frequencies are then specified, thus the elec- sure the resonance at .
trical lengths , , and for embedded open- 5) The slope parameters of the utilized resonators are avail-
ended stubs can be calculated based on (16). Note that each able as and ( to ). Apply and
resonator may possess more than one stub for contributing into (1b) to get inverter values . Then, (2a) and (2b)
multiple TZs. can be utilized for even- and odd-mode characteristic ad-
2) The two segments of TLs composing individual resonator, mittances of each coupled-line sections. Note
i.e., and are also served as auxiliary that it will be convenient to prepare the design chart for
connecting lines to facilitate the attachment of multiple as shown in Fig. 3 first by the given
open-ended stubs for generation of TZs and can be picked and .
up reasonably. The reference admittances of PCL sec-
tions and related coupled lengths are then assigned. VIII. BPF WITH MULTIPLE TZs
3) Evaluate the design parameters of the input and output To validate the feasibility of the design procedure stated
Y-TF feeding structures through (8)–(15) by assigning in Section III, a filter using SCSERs and the proposed Y-TF
preferable line impedances ZMI and ZMO. feeds is designed and implemented on the 0.813-mm-thick
4) For inner resonator , with unknowns, i.e., the admit- RO4003c substrate. The filter is designed with GHz
tance of each open-ended stub, need to be deter- and for a 0.1-dB ripple Chebyshev response.
mined. Assign the reasonable admittance to the 1st The prescribed low-pass prototype parameters ’s are
LIN: COUPLED-LINE FILTERS WITH STUB-EMBEDDED RESONATORS 2919

Fig. 21. Inverter-based equivalent circuit of the proposed PCL BPF with (5 1) TZs shown in Fig. 20 ( S and S).

TABLE IV
DESIGN PARAMETERS OF THE PROPOSED PCL FILTER IN FIG. 20

. Displayed in Fig. 20 is the schematic of one demon-


stration of the proposed fourth-order PCL filters with multiple
TZs. As can be seen, multiple open-ended stubs are embedded
into the resonators to achieve the TZ generation. The TZ
planning is tabulated in Table III to determine the stub lengths.
The corresponding open-wire-line equivalent circuit is shown
in Fig. 21. It is worth mentioning that resonator 3 with two em-
bedded stubs will be responsible for double fundamental TZs
(0.77 and 2.01 GHz) and one extra harmonic TZ at 2.24 GHz,
which are three times of 0.77 GHz, while each of the other three
resonators contributes a single fundamental TZ. In conclusion,
this filter will possess (5 1) TZs (five fundamental TZs and Fig. 22. Circuit-model simulations of the proposed PCL filter with (5 1) TZs
using the Y-TF feeds and SCSERs in Fig. 20.
one harmonic TZ).
For simplicity, all the adopted SCSERs are designed
with , , and
. It means that the PCL sections PCL12,
PCL23, and PCL34 are assigned with equal reference imped-
ances . However, the unequal coupled lengths,
i.e., , , , respectively, are par-
ticularly chosen to demonstrate the case utilizing asymmetric
resonators. After determining the selectable parameters, the
stub admittances can now be solved based on the approach
mentioned in step 4, Section VII. The slope parameters
and of the partial end SCSERs 1 and 4 can be calculated
by differentiating (A8) and (A11) and are of 0.02582 and
0.02799 S, respectively. The input and output Y-TF feeding Fig. 23. Layout of the PCL filters with (5 1) TZs shown in Fig. 20. (
structures adopt line impedance and , , , , ,
, , , , ,
. On the basis of the specification, the required I/O , , , , ,
external quality factors and are 11.09. One may , , , mm, via diameter mm).
obtain the corresponding
and utilizing (14) and (15)
by applying and . Eventually, the calculated slope side band and the frequency selectivity without affecting the
parameters, parameters of Y-TF feeds, and impedances of PCL passband performance. Since a TZ of 0.77 GHz below 1.5 GHz
sections are concluded in Table IV for quick reference. contributed by resonator 3 is determined, resonator 3 has fun-
The circuit-model simulations of this proposed PCL filter has damental resonance at 0.68 GHz and the next two higher order
been carried out using AWR Microwave Office and displayed in resonances at 1.5 GHz and 2.24 GHz, respectively. By
Fig. 22 while the filter layout optimized by EM simulator (An- placing TZ2 precisely at 2.24 GHz, one of the spurious reso-
soft Designer) is shown in Fig. 23. Clearly, (5 1) TZs appear nance is effectively suppressed.
exactly at the designated frequencies. The roughly equal-dis- The fabricated filter excluding I/O feed lines occupies an area
tributed TZs significantly enhance the attenuation of the higher of 67.59 mm 33.9 mm, i.e., about , where
2920 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 62, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2014

has been proposed and thoroughly analyzed. Since the attach-


ment of the feed termination onto the end resonator will affect
the resonance, the parallel-coupled resonator filter using the
conventional tapped-line feedings is discovered as being not
exact and needs to be reconsidered. Based on the proposed
Y-TF feeds, the filters using typical SIRs can be designed with
satisfactory frequency responses in comparison with ideal ones
synthesized from a coupling matrix. The adopted approach
is not limited in filters with short-circuited resonators and
could possibly be further extended. Moreover, the SCSER is
proposed to design the inverter-based BPF utilizing asymmetric
resonators with a more flexible configuration. Multiple struc-
ture-inherent TZs can be achieved at designated frequencies
in PCL filters by using the SCSERs without necessitating
additional coupling paths or other special TZ-generation mech-
anisms.

APPENDIX
The two types of resonators with embedded open-ended stubs
constituting the filter are shown in Fig. 19. Resonators 1 and
can be classified as the same configuration. The lengths of
the embedded stubs among the filter, i.e., , , and
will be decided in the beginning of the filter design in accor-
dance with the desired TZ frequencies. In Fig. 19(a), the res-
Fig. 24. Measured and full-wave EM simulated results of the proposed PCL
filter with (5 1) TZs in Fig. 23. (a) Scattering parameters. (b) Group delays.
onators ( to ), i.e., inner SCSER, consists of
two short-circuited stepped-impedance stubs and possesses em-
bedded open-ended stubs of number . As for the end SCSERs
represents the free-space wavelength at 1.5 GHz. The pho- 1 and depicted in Fig. 19(b) and (c), they can be considered
tograph of the fabricated PCL filter with multiple TZs is shown as the shunt combination of the short-circuited two-section stub
as the inset in Fig. 24(a). The measured/simulated scattering pa- and an additional susceptance block. The corresponding reso-
rameters and group delays are illustrated in Fig. 24(a) and (b), nance conditions and input susceptance slope parameters are
respectively. This filter possesses a measured center frequency discussed as follow.
at 1.48 GHz, fractional bandwidth about 10.8%, and a min- A. Inner SCSER
imum insertion loss of 1.813 dB. The unsuppressed resonance at
0.67 GHz becomes not significant because of its finite- prop- Considering resonator exhibited in Fig. 19(a), the input sus-
erty. The reason the TZs become unobvious from 2 to 3 GHz ceptance seen from the LHS is given by
both in the EM simulation and measurement may be majorly
attributed to the inevitably unwanted cross/stray couplings and
minorly attributed to the optimization processes. As a whole,
the capability of enhancing the attenuation level (up to 80 dB) (A1)
by means of TZs is still observable in the measurement, and with
thus validates the functions of SCSERs. Referring to those filters
using cross couplings [18]–[21] or source–load couplings [23]
(A2)
for TZ creation, their measurements usually show that the rejec-
tions at TZs approximate 40–60 dB. From the practical view-
point, the proposed PCL filter achieves relatively high attenua- and
tion at plural designated TZ frequencies.
Note that, in comparison with the conventional SIRs, the (A3)
adopted SCSER possesses more rapid changing resonance
characteristic, equivalently a steeper susceptance response, Due to the structure similarity of the th resonator seen from the
due to the embedded stubs. This causes the eager necessity of LHS and RHS, the slope parameter seen from the RHS of
the proposed accuracy-improved Y-TF feeds in designing the the th resonator can be evaluated in a similar way.
proposed BPF with enhanced stopband performance. To more conveniently calculate the resonant frequency of the
th SCSER exhibited in Fig. 14(a), the total susceptances at node
IX. CONCLUSION “mid” are further summed as given by

In this paper, an accurate admittance-transformer feeding (A4)


structure for filter design based on short-circuited resonators
LIN: COUPLED-LINE FILTERS WITH STUB-EMBEDDED RESONATORS 2921

All the input susceptances , , and must equal admittance of the open-ended stub in resonator can
zero at to fulfill the resonant condition of inner resonators also be solved with given .
( to ). The strategy for guaranteeing the resonance According to (A7), (A9), (A10), and (A12), the susceptance
of each th resonator is first determining , , and slope parameters , , , and are now completely
, to , and then solving the final un- available by differentiating the four expressions. Note that the
known using a chosen . As a result, the susceptance end SCSER degenerates to the SIR shunt with an additional
slope parameters and can be evaluated by differentiating susceptance block (see Section V) when no open-ended stub
and with respect to frequency variable . is embedded. Thus, the resonances of end resonators 1 and
With regard to the special case (resonators with no embedded without embedded stubs are ruled by (A6) and (A5), respec-
open-ended stubs), the SCSER degenerates to a typical SIR. tively, since have been ensured
The fundamental resonance of the inner SIR utilized by the fil- during the design process of I/O Y-TF feedings.
ters in Figs. 6 and 10 is governed by simultaneous fulfillment of
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