1

Microstrip Bandpass Filters for Ultra-Wideband (UWB) Wireless

Communications
Ching-Luh Hsu
1
, Fu-Chieh Hsu
2
and Jen-Tsai Kuo
2

1
Department of Electronics Engineering, Ta Hwa Institute of Technology
1 Dahua Rd., Qionglin, Hsinchu, 307, TAIWAN
2
Department of Communication Engineering, National Chiao Tung University
1001 Tahsueh Rd., Hsinchu, 300, TAIWAN

Abstract A new technique is developed for designing a
composite microstrip bandpass filter (BPF) with a 3-dB
fractional bandwidth of more than 100%. The BPF is suitable for
ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless communications. The design
utilizes embedding individually designed highpass structures and
lowpass filters (LPF) into each other, followed by an optimization
for tuning in-band performance. The stepped-impedance LPF is
employed to attenuate the upper stopband and quarter-wave
short-circuited stubs are used to realize the lower stopband. Two
such BPFs are fabricated and measured to demonstrate the
performance.
Index Terms Bandpass filters, microstrip filters, ultra-
wideband, wideband filters.
I. INTRODUCTION
The requirement of wideband bandpass filters (BPFs) has
emerged from advance of the ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless
communications [1-2]. For the UWB purpose, the fractional
bandwidth of BPFs usually exceeds 100%. Based on the
traditional parallel-coupled line structure, very strong coupling
structure will be a must for such a wide bandwidth. The
tolerance of a microstrip fabrication process, however,
imposes an upper limit upon coupling levels for coupling
structures. To increase the coupling, special arrangement such
as three-line structure [3] can be incorporated into the filter
structure for wideband design. The relative bandwidths of the
filters presented in [3], nevertheless, are still no more than
70%. Furthermore, filters synthesized using conventional
method [4] show a smaller bandwidth than theoretical
prediction, since the synthesis procedure is formulated only
for relatively narrow band purposes [5]. Even the bandwidth
prediction by sophisticated Q value distribution method [6] is
promising; the implementation of the microstrip coupled
stages with a very high coupling level is still limited by the
resolution of fabrication process.
Alternatively, a wideband BPF can be constructed by a
direct cascade of an LPF and an HPF. Both upper and lower
transition bands can be determined individually as long as the
input and output impedances of both filters are matched. In
this paper, the HPF and the LPF are combined together, or
equivalently one is embedded into the other, so that the circuit
area of entire circuit can be greatly saved. A stepped-
impedance structure is used to design the LPF because it is
easier to design and occupies less space [5]. Its design is
readily available if the order, cutoff frequency, and in-band
specification are specified. For realizing the HPF
characteristic, i.e., the lower stopband, short-circuited stubs
are tapped to the high-impedance microstrip sections of the
LPF, so that attenuation poles are inserted at DC.
Optimization is then employed to fulfill the specification over
a wide bandwidth. Two filters with 3dB bandwidths of 51%
and 127% are designed and measured.
Composite BPF
Directly-cascaded BPF
HPF
g/ 4
g/ 4
LPF

Fig. 1. Evolution of the proposed composite BPF.
II. BPF CONFIGURATION AND DESIGN PROCEDURE
Fig. 1 shows the configurations of a directly cascaded BPF
and the proposed composite BPF. Obviously, the latter uses an
area much less than the former. Both BPFs consist of a hi-Z,
low-Z LPF and an HPF structure designed with shunt quarter-
wave short-circuited stubs separated with
g
/4 sections, acting
as impedance inverters. The variable
g
is the guided
wavelength at a proper frequency f
o
which will be addressed
shortly.
Fig. 2(a) and 2(b) show the layouts of the microstrip LPF
and HPF of our initial designs. The LPF has a cutoff
frequency at 10 GHz, and the HPF at 3 GHz for fulfilling the
UWB requirement. Note that the HPF shows a periodic
response due to its distributive nature and possesses a
bandpass characteristic from DC to 2f
o
. Its center frequency f
o

should be large enough so that the passband performance of
0-7803-8846-1/05/$20.00 (C) 2005 IEEE
2
the composite BPF is not destroyed by the notch of the HPF at
2f
o
. Fig. 2(c) shows the respective simulated performances of
the LPF and HPF. Both filters have return losses better than 20
dB in their respective passbands. The full-wave software
package IE3D [7] is used for fine tune of the circuit
dimensions.
A. Stepped-Impedance LPF
In realization of a stepped-impedance LPF, the length of
each line section is given as [5]:


eff hi c
c
hi
c
L
v
Z
L
,
1
tan

|
|
.
|

\
|
=

A
(1)
and

( )
eff low c
c
low c C
v
CZ
,
1
sin

= A
. (2)



W
hi
W
Ao
4
L
5
L
L
2
L
3 1
L

(a)
stub
L
inv L
Z
inv
Z
o
stub
Z

(b)
-70
-60
-50
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Frequency (GHz)
|
S
1
1
|
,
|
S
2
1
|

(
d
B
)
0
f 2
LPF
HPF
f
0

(c)
Fig. 2. (a) Geometry of LPF. L
1
= 1.02, L
2
= 2.67, L
3
= 2.0, L
4
=
3.2, L
5
= 2.09, W
lo
= 3.2, W
hi
= 0.2, all in mm. (b) Geometry of HPF.
L
stub
= 6.35, L
inv
= 6.07, all in mm. Z
stub
= 130, Z
inv
= 46. (c)
Simulated LPF and HPF performances. Both circuits are symmetric
about their respective centers.

where L and C are respectively the inductance and capacitance
values of the LPF prototype scaled by the port impedance and
cutoff frequency, v
c
is the speed of light in free space, and
c

represents the 3-dB angular frequency. The effective dielectric
constants
hi,eff
and
low,eff
are for the hi-Z and low-Z microstrip
sections, respectively. The formulas can be simplified if each
section is electrically short and the results are


eff hi
c
hi
L
v
Z
L
,

|
|
.
|

\
|
= A
(3)
and

eff low
c low
C
v CZ
,

= A
. (4)

Note that all formulas (1) through (4) are derived with
approximation. For initial design, one can use either (1) or (2)
to implement L and either (3) or (4) to realize C. It is found
that, based on our experience in this particular design, the
synthesized LPF will have an accurate cutoff frequency and
better agreement with an ideal LPF response by using (1) and
(4). It could be due to the parasitic components existing in the
impedance junctions.
B. High-Pass Filters
For the HPF in Fig. 2(b), the ABCD parameters of the
impedance inverters and the shunt stubs are given as [5]:


(
(
(
(
(

|
|
.
|

\
|
|
|
.
|

\
|
|
|
.
|

\
|
|
|
.
|

\
|
=
(

o o
inv
o
inv
o
inv
f
f
f
f
jY
f
f
jZ
f
f
D C
B A
2
cos
2
sin
2
sin
2
cos


(5)
and

(
(

|
|
.
|

\
|
=
(

1
2
cot
0 1
o stub
stub
f
f
Z
j
D C
B A

. (6)

where Z
inv
and Z
stub
are the characteristic impedances of the
inverter and stub, respectively. The stub length is determined
by choosing f
o
= 9 GHz, which will give a sufficiently wide
passband for our particular design. The passband performance
of the HPF relies on the values of Z
inv
and Z
stub
. When Z
inv
= 50
, design data of the stub admittances for a maximally flat
response can be found in [8]. It is known that the 3dB point of
the HPF, f
3dB
, is inversely proportional to Z
stub
. If it is below 2
GHz, provided f
o
= 9 GHz, value of Z
stub
will exceed 150
which is difficult to implement by the microstrip structure.
By comparing coefficients of the insertion loss function
derived from the final ABCD matrix with designated
Chebyshev or Butterworth function, Z
stub
and Z
inv
can be
determined. It is found that, however, the 3dB frequency is
still dominated by Z
stub
. Therefore, the desired value of Z
stub
can
be found by choosing Z
inv
a value between 45 and 50 .
3
Proposed composite BPF
Directly cascaded BPF
0
-20
-30
-50
-60
-40
-10
18 20 14 10 12 6 2 4 8 0 16
|
S
1
1
|
,
|
S
2
1
|

(
d
B
)
(GHz) Frequency

Fig. 3. Performances of the directly cascaded and the proposed
composite BPFs.

C. The Composite BPF and Optimization
The LPF and HPF shown in Fig. 2 can be directly cascaded
or embedded each other to form a wideband BPF. Fig. 3
compares the performances of these two BPFs. No
optimization is applied to the directly cascaded filter, and its
performance is used as a benchmark. Of the directly cascaded
BPF, the upper and lower transition bands agree well with its
counterparts shown in Fig.2.
In the proposed composite BPF, the tap positions,
impedance inverters and stub lengths can be different from
those of the HPF. First, in Fig. 4(a), two hi-Z sections with a
low-Z section in between can definitely be equivalent to a
g
/4
line as an impedance inverter, and have a high-pass function.
It can be proved that the -network in Fig. 4(b) also possesses
a high-pass characteristic, and the Z
stub
and Z
inv
values can be
derived in a similar fashion to the method given in [8]. Note
that the values of L
a
and L
c
have been specified by the LPF,
thus only L
stub
and L
b
have to be determined by a root-searching
program. In the program, L
stub
is chosen first and then L
b
is
calculated from the 3dB point. The iteration finishes if the in-
band return loss of the composite BPF achieves a satisfactory
level. It is found that the case in Fig. 4(a) works well for a
bandwidth of about 50%, and the two-patch case in Fig. 4(b)
can show a good performance over a bandwidth up to 100%.
The composite BPF needs further optimization since the LPF
part of the composite BPF structure is perturbed. After
optimization, in-band return loss can be further improved up
to better than 20 dB as shown in Fig.3.
III. MEASUREMENTS
Two composite filters, built on a substrate with
r
= 2.2 and
thickness h = 20 mils, are designed to demonstrate the
proposed idea. Circuit simulation is done before they are
fabricated, since parasitic effects of step discontinuities, T-
junction and grounding via holes have to be taken into
account.
g/ 4
g/ 4
a
L
b
L
L
stub

(a)
g/ 2
g/ 4
L
c
b
L
L
stub
L
a
Z
stub
inv
Z

(b)
Fig. 4. Derivations of the highpass structures in the composite
BPFs. (a) Single-patch case. (b) Two-patch case.
L
L
L
L
L
L
L
L
stub2
stub1
4
31
11
2
12 32

(a)
Simulation
Measurement
0
-20
-30
-50
-60
-40
-10
18 20 14 10 12 6 2 4 8 0 16
|
S
1
1
|
,
|
S
2
1
|

(
d
B
)
(GHz) Frequency

(b)

(c)
Fig. 5. Geometry of the fabricated filter A. L
11
= 0.3, L
12
= 0.73, L
2

= 2.48, L
31
= 2.07, L
32
= 0.59, L
4
= 3.28, L
stub1
= L
stub2
= 2.4, all in
mm. (b) Simulation and measurement responses. (c) Circuit photo.
4
Fig. 5(a) plots the geometry of BPF A which has three low-
Z patches and four short-circuited stubs. The passband is
designed from 6 GHz to 10 GHz, complying with the upper
frequency set of the UWB wireless communications. The
characteristic impedances corresponding to line sections with
widths W
hi
and W
Ao
are 130 and 30, respectively. Fig. 5(b)
shows the simulation and measurement responses. The
measured return loss is better than 15dB. In the lower
transition band the measurement agrees very well with the
simulation. In the upper transition, the measured data have
deviations from the simulation. The discrepancy may attribute
to the inaccurate modeling of via holes in simulation, since
each via may have a strong radiation at these frequencies. The
photograph of the circuit is in Fig. 5(c).
4
L
2
L
1 3
5
stub
hi
Ao
L
W
W
L
L
L

(a)
Frequency (GHz)
|
S
1
1
|
,
|
S
2
1
|

(
d
B
)
16 0 8 4 2 6 12 10 14 20 18
-10
-40
-60
-50
-30
-20
0
Measurement
Simulation

(b)

(c)
Fig. 6. (a) Geometry of the fabricated filter B. L
1
= 0.85, L
2
= 3.22,
L
3
= 1.54, L
4
= 3.39, L
5
=2.27, L
stub
=3.45, all in mm. (b) Simulation
and measurement responses. (c) Circuit photo.
Fig. 6(a) plots the geometry of filter B. In this circuit, two
short-circuited stubs are used. In the final circuit optimization
for the composite BPF, L
2
is increased and L
3
decreased by
20%, while the other dimensions have relatively small
changes. The passband is designed from 3 GHz to 10 GHz.
The simulation and measurement data are presented in Fig.
6(b). The experimental circuit has not only a return loss better
than 15 dB from 5 GHz to 9.5 GHz, but also a good rejection
in the upper stopband. Fig. 6(c) shows the photo of the circuit.
IV. CONCLUSION
A new technique for designing microstrip BPFs suitable for
the UWB wireless communications is proposed. The BPF is
designed with a composite structure by embedding an HPF
and an LPF to each other. The HPF is realized by coupled
short-circuited stubs and the LPF is by the well-known
stepped-impedance structure. Although the high-pass and low-
pass structures in a composite BPF are perturbed by each other,
the entire design shows a satisfactory bandpass characteristic
over a wide bandwidth. Two experimental filters are designed
to have bandwidths complying with the upper frequency set
and full-band of the UWB specifications. The measured data
show a good passband characteristic and a good agreement
with the simulated results.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work was supported in part by the National Science Council,
TAIWAN, under Grants NSC 93-2213-E-009-095 and NSC 93-2752-
E-009-002-PAE.
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