A Novel Microstrip Bandpass Filter Design using

Asymmetric Parallel Coupled-Line

Si-Weng Fok1, Pedro Cheong1, Kam-Weng Tam1, Rui Martins1,2
1
Wireless Communication Laboratory (http://www.fst.umac.mo/lab/wireless)
Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Macau, Macao, China
2
On leave from Instituto Superior Tcnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal

Port 1
Abstract A novel parallel coupled-line bandpass filter with
nd
suppression at the 2 harmonic frequency is presented in this Port 2
paper. This structure offers a simple design methodology and (a)
corresponding implementation. An example of a 900 MHz
prototype bandpass filter is used to demonstrate the Port 1
performance of the new structure. The measured results agree
Port 2
well with the simulation, where, up to 40 dB suppression is
recorded at the 2nd spurious response, whilst the matching (b)
achieves an interesting level close to 29 dB.
Fig. 1. Parallel coupled-line bandpass filter: (a) Conventional structure.
(b) Proposed novel structure using asymmetric coupled transmission lines.

I. INTRODUCTION
zeros that will eliminate filters harmonics [6-8]. And using
In the past decades, the traditional parallel coupled-line correct stubs width and length dimensions, the transmission
bandpass filter [1], shown in Fig. 1(a), has been extensively zero can be placed in the proximity of those harmonics
studied and widely used in RF front-ends design. But, the allowing wider stopbands. The major drawback would be an
performance of this structure suffers from the existence of obvious increase of the filters size.
spurious passbands generated at the multiples of the In this paper, a novel parallel coupled-line bandpass filter
operating frequency. This intrinsic limitation degrades the using asymmetric parallel coupled-line [2] is proposed as
stopband rejection behavior and limits its field reliability. depicted in Fig. 1(b). Conventional quasi-TEM microstrip
In order to eliminate the above spurious passbands (also parallel coupled-line bandpass filter has an intrinsic
referred as harmonics) and to obtain a good out-of-band transmission zero located at frequencies higher than the 2nd
performance, a recent modification has been introduced in harmonic. By adopting such type of structure, spurious
the conventional parallel coupled-line bandpass filter leading response suppression is obtained by relocating a transmission
to a parallel-coupled wiggly-line architecture [3]. This zero close to the harmonics whilst preserving the well-
structure introduces continuous and periodic sinusoidal defined filter design procedure and layout simplicity. The
perturbation along the coupled-line offering wave impedance proposed filter structure is described in Section II where the
modulation so as to yield Bragg reflection at certain basic elements of the proposed filter will be analyzed, as
frequencies. Although notable 2nd spurious response well as the effect of those elements on the resonant
suppression is attributed, this is only achievable through frequency, 2nd harmonic response and transmission zero.
complex filter geometry. In addition to this approach, Also, the relationship between the perturbation size and the
indentation of rectangular-wave contour (square-grooves) transmission zero location will be explored. To demonstrate
has also been recently presented [4-5], although the filter the usefulness and efficiency of the proposed structure for
geometry is still a matter of concern. parallel coupled-line filters harmonics suppression, the
simulation and the experimental results of a prototype are
Introducing /4 resonator with open stub in the parallel presented in Section III. Finally, the conclusions are drawn
coupled-line leads to the implementation of transmission in Section IV.

0-7803-8834-8/05/$20.00 2005 IEEE. 404

 Port 1
Port 2

(a)

Port 1
Port 2

(b)

Fig. 2. Basic asymmetric parallel coupled-line (a) Type I; (b) Type II.

II. ASYMMETRIC PARALLEL COUPLED-LINE

Fig. 3. Resonant frequency locations with M = 50% for conventional
As illustrated in Fig. 1(b), the proposed filter structure parallel coupled-line, case 1 (), case 2 ( ), case 3 ( ), and
exhibits the same basic pattern of the conventional coupled- case 4 ( ).
line from Fig. 1(a). However, some asymmetry has been
added in the newly proposed parallel coupled-line as shown
in more detail in Fig.2. Here, the introduced asymmetric
lines contribute to the modulation of the characteristic
impedance of the coupled-line, thus reallocating the 2nd
harmonic and the transmission zero. There are two possible
types of lines (Type I and Type II) and three equal length
subsections can be considered to implement them, each with
1/3 of the conventional design length, that is, 0 /12 (where 0
is the guided wavelength), for simplicity. Without loss of
generality, in the three sections of type I, only the width of
the one in the middle will be perturbed by the width
modulation factor M whilst the other two end sections
widths are kept as those from the conventional design. On
the other hand, the structure of type II is similar to type I
except with an alteration in the direction of the perturbation Fig. 4. 2nd hamonic locations with M = 50% for conventional parallel
that will be the opposite. Moreover, both type I or type II can coupled-line, case 1 (), case 2 ( ), case 3 ( ), and case 4
be cascaded allowing the design of higher orders filters. ( ).
Then, the following 4 cases can be considered for analysis:
Case 1: Conventional parallel coupled-line.
Case 2: Type I or II is used as both input and output.
Case 3: Type I is the input whilst type II as the output.
Case 4: Type II is the input whilst type I as the output.
The above 4 cases were simulated as basic examples
using the MoM based electromagnetic simulator [9] to
compare the features of each case with the conventional
parallel coupled-line. Each case was designed at a resonant
frequency of 900 MHz with 20% fractional bandwidth, with
the simulation results at resonant frequency presented in Fig.
3. Here, it is clearly shown that the center frequency shifts to
lower frequency in case 2 and case 4 whilst the center
frequency of case 3 is almost unaltered (when compared with
Fig. 5. Transmission zero locations with M = 50% for conventional parallel
case 1). Regarding the 2nd harmonic locations, as presented coupled-line, case 1 (), case 2 ( ), case 3 ( ), and case 4
in Fig. 4, both responses of case 2 and 4 shifts to lower ( ).

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 maximally flat bandpass filter @ 900 MHz with 20%
fractional bandwidth has been implemented (as shown in
Fig. 7). The substrate used is RO4003 with a dielectric
constant of 3.38 and thickness of 1.524 mm. The
corresponding dimensions of the filter are listed in Table 1.
On the other hand, the simulation results of a conventional
parallel coupled-line and the proposed prototype filter with
M = 76% are shown in Fig. 8.

Fig. 6. Variations of f0 (), 2nd harmonic ( ) and transmission zero

( ) with M for cases 3 (Type I + Type II) and 4 (Type II + Type I). Fig. 7. Proposed Filter Structure (Asymmetric Parallel Coupled-Line).

frequency and only case 3s response shifts to higher TABLE 1. FILTER DIMENSIONS IN mm.
frequency. Moreover, it has been also found that for cases 2,
3 & 4, the transmission zero location shifts to lower l s w M
frequency when compared with case 1, as it is evident in 52.65 0.7 1.0 76%
Fig. 5.
In order to illustrate clearly the perturbation effect (by
variation of M) the relationship between M and resonant It is apparent that there is great spurious suppression of
frequency, 2nd harmonic and transmission zero location are 44 dB @ 1.8 GHz, whilst the passband edges are sharpened.
summarized in Fig. 6. Positive values of M stand for case 3 Moreover, a transmission zero with 53 dB is recorded @
(Type I + Type II) whereas negative values stand for case 4 1.93 GHz and this transmission zero is crucial for the
(Type II + Type I). As such, it can be concluded that the suppression of the 2nd harmonic. The slight difference in the
transmission zero location only relies on the absolute value bandwidth is due to variations of the coupling coefficient.
of M, implying that for both cases, the transmission zero
location is similar for the same value of M. However, the 2nd
harmonic shifts to a higher frequency band as the
perturbation increases for both cases. In general, the 2nd
harmonic is usually located at lower frequency in case 4
when compared with case 3. Also, it is clear that the
variation of M has almost no influence on the resonant
frequency since for any value of M, the resonant frequency is
still quite close to 900 MHz. Considering the 2nd harmonic
and transmission zero locations, it is found that in case 3,
when M approaches to 76%, the location of the 2nd
harmonic and transmission zero have an intersection. Thus, it
implies that a design with M = 76%, will achieve a higher
2nd harmonic rejection level.

III. SIMULATED AND MEASURED RESULTS

Fig. 8. Simulated S-parameters of conventional parallel coupled-line
Since an intersection of 2nd harmonic and transmission bandpass filter ( ) and proposed filter ().
zero is observed for case 3, thus the behavioral evaluation of
a prototype filter of such type would be the main objective of To test the performance of the proposed filter a prototype
the following design. In order to demonstrate the was fabricated in the same substrate, as presented in the
performance of the proposed structure, a first order photo of Fig. 9 (with a size of 126.0 12.1 mm2).

406
 structure follows a simple design methodology and
recalculation of the prototype filter parameters was not
necessary, thus extending the design flexibility of the
conventional parallel coupled-line filter.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This work is financially supported by the University of

Fig. 9. Prototype filter photo. Macau under the research grant with Ref. No. RG016-03-
04S-MR/FST. The authors would like to thank also to K. F.
The measured S-parameters results reported in Fig. 10, Chang for his technical suggestions during the development
with a 2nd harmonic suppression of 40 dB, constitute a real of this work.
proof of the superb performance of the proposed filter and
confirm the simulation results. The transmission zero is REFERENCES
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Fig. 10. S-parameters of the proposed filter (- - Simulated; Measured).

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