Coupling Matrix Synthesis for the Cascaded Filters

Yang Gao1, Fan Zhang2, Cheng Guo3, Junchao Wang1, Yuhuai Liu1*, Juin J. Liou1
1. Department of Information Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China
2. Physical School,University of Electronic Science and Technology, Chengdu, China
3. Department of Information and Telecommunication Engineering, X i’an Jiaotong University, X i’an, China
*[email protected]

Abstract— This paper presents a method using N+4 coupling

matrix to represent cascaded filters. With additional columns Transmission
and rows (corresponding to the transmission line) added to the line
conventional N+2 coupling matrix, the N+4 coupling matrix can
be developed. It can also be used to calculate the X-parameter Characteristic
responses of filters cascaded through transmission lines. A impedance Zo
cascaded bandpass filter is demonstrated using lumped LC Fig. 1 The voltages and currents at the two ports o f the transmission line.
components, and the synthesized coupling matrix is verified by
the excellent agreement between simulated and calculated
results.
Keywords— N+4 coupling matrix, cascadedfilters. Zo is the referred characteristic impedance, which is usually
50 Q for planar TLs.
I. In t r o d u c t io n The Non-resonating-nodes (NRNs) between two filters are
Filters are sometimes cascaded in series to improve the schematically shown in Fig. 2(a), where the clear circles
performance o f communication systems by rejecting outside denote the source and load and solid circles refer to the
bands or to realizing some other functionalities [1], [2]. The resonators and NRNs. Fig. 2(b) is the corresponding lumped
half-wavelength transmission line (TL) has been employed circuit model. Where J inverters are used as the coupling
between cascaded filters to realize the non-resonance-nodes elements. Here J j Jk,m and Jout,k+i represent for the inverters
[1], [2]. Also, additional columns and rows are added to the between the kth and (k+l)th resonators and the transmission
conventional coupling matrix corresponding to the non- line; Yp\ and Yn are the input and output port admittances.
resonating nodes (NRNs), producing a new N+4 coupling Appling Kirchoffs laws at each nodes o f the circuit in Fig.
matrix [2], However, this coupling matrix can only be used 2(b), we can write down the admittance matrix [Y] o f the
when filters are cascaded by transmission line with fixed circuit. Also, the matrix scaling process is illustrated in Fig.
length, i.e. half wavelength. 3. Referring to [4] and [5], the 5-parameters response can be
In this work, we present a method which allows cascaded calculated by
filters using TL with arbitrary length (namely, with an 5 „ = 2|Re Fp1|[F]- !jp1-1
adjustable phase shift). This can be done by using the . ____:___ (2)
admittance matrix o f the transmission line and the matrix 521 = 2 Re Fp,| •|Re Fp2|[F]-12pj
scaling technique. It should be noticed that the cascaded In Fig. 3, the rows and columns denoted as p i and p i
device is treated as a whole entity, characterized by the indicate the input and output ports o f the filter; pin and pout
coupling matrix. represent for the input and output port o f the transmission line.
The next step is to normalize the [Y] matrix in Fig. 3 and
derive the coupling matrix. Here each row i and column j (i,
II. N+4 COUPLING M A T R IX SYNTHESIS OF THE CASCADED
j —1 to n) o f the matrix [Y] is scaled by ^M q C-FBW , where
FILTERS
— 1/VhC is the centre frequency o f the resonator and
Fig. 1 shows the voltages and currents relationships o f the FB W is the fractional bandwidth o f the network, p i , P 2, Pin,
transmission line. V and I (i= l to 2) are the voltages and and Pout are divided by ^Y ^. Yo=0.02 S is the referred
currents at the two ports. The admittance (Y) matrix can be characteristic admittance.
calculated from the ABCD matrix using formulas provided in Note that the inverses o f [Y] and [Y] can be expressed by
[3], that is the ratios o f their co-factors and determinants [6]
coshy/ -1
Z0 sinh y/ Z0 sinh y/
(1)
-1 coshy/
Z0 sinh y/ Z0 sinh y/
where / is denoted as the length o f the transmission line. Note
here y=a+jk, a is the attenuation constant, and k is the wave
number. Here, we assume transmission line is lossless (a=0).

978-l-7281-0286-3/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE

 Filter 1 Filter 2

N (D
(a)

Yp2

(b)
Fig. 2 Topology and circuit schematic of the cascaded filter, (a) Topology, (b) Lumped circuit representation.

S n = 2 [ A ] p l >p -1
where |Y| and |Y| are the determinant o f [Y] and |Y] . (7)
cof(YPi pj ) and cof(Ypi Pj ) are the entries in column Pi and S 21 = 2 [ A ] p 2 ,p i

row Pj o f the cofactor matrices o f [Y] and [ Y]. Recalling Matrix [A] can be decomposed into three matrices [7] and [8],
relationship o f matrix [Y] and [Y] in Fig. 3, we obtain the given by
relationships o f their determinants and cofactors as [A] = [T] + p -[U ] - j \ m ] (8)
\Y\=Uco0C ■FBW f - ( J Y )S|Y| where the [T] matrix includes the filter’s port admittance and
' c (4) the NRNs. [U] is the identity matrix except for entries Up i ,p i ,
cof ( Y p j = Jco0C ■FBW f ■ JYTf cof (Yp^ ) Up2,p2, Uin,im and Uout.out which are zero, p is the complex
frequency variable defined in [1] as
Substitution o f (4) into (3) yields 1 co m,
P=j (9)
-, m pip FBW m
pi,pj (5) The normalized coupling matrix [m\ is given by
Thus, the 5-parameters can be calculated by substituting (5) ~msubl
into (2), given by cosh y/ -j
Su = 2|Re Ypi|[Yf A n ~ 1 sinh y/ sinh y/
( 10)
. , , _ , (6) -j cosh y/
S21 = 2 Re Yn\ ■Re Yp 2\[Y]Ip2,pi sinh y/ sinh y/
4
[F] can be reduced to the coupling matrix [A] applying
narrow band approximation. Considered in this normalized where submatrices mSubi and mSub2 denote the cascaded filters
matrix, the port admittances Ypi and Ypi are unity, thus the S- before and after the transmission line.
parameters can be expressed by
Fig. 4 Lumped circuit of the cascaded filter simulated in ADS. C o=0.0253 pF, C o,1=0.0246 pF C l,2=2.105 fF, L o=10 nH, Yp\= 7p 2=0.02 S.

matrix scaling technique which can be applied in synthesizing

III. Ex a mp l e : A t r a n s mis s io n l in e c a s c a d e d f il t e r
the coupling matrix o f cascaded, integrated, multiple
An example o f two 2nd order filters cascaded with functional devices or systems.
transmission line is presented in the section. The two identical
filters are specified with 10 GHz center frequency, 500 MHz
Ref er en c es
bandwidth (FBW=0.05), and 20 dB return loss. They are
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response calculated by the matrix calculation fits precisely to
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electric lengths for the cascading line. It also provides a

Fig. 5 S-parameters response using matrix formulation and circuit

simulation, (a) yl =1/8^/. (b) yl =1/4 nc)
( yl (b) y l The
transmission line works at 10 GHz center frequency.