IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 16, NO.

8, AUGUST 2006

443

A Bandpass Filter Design Using Half-Wavelength

Stepped Impedance Resonators
With Internal Couplings
Kongpop U-yen, Student Member, IEEE, Edward J. Wollack, Senior Member, IEEE, Terence Doiron, Member, IEEE,
John Papapolymerou, Senior Member, IEEE, and Joy Laskar, Fellow, IEEE

AbstractWe propose a new type of microstrip half-wavelength

2) stepped impedance resonator (SIR) for use in bandpass
filter (BPF) designs. This 2 SIR has an internal coupling section
that can be used to generate a coupling coefficient in the filter
design in addition to couplings between SIRs. It also contains
additional stepped impedance lines that shift and suppress the
lowest even-mode resonance frequencies to more than what can be
achieved by conventional 2 SIRs. Moreover, a transmission zero
is generated close to its fundamental resonance frequency ( 0 )
which can be used in definition of the filter response. A fourthorder microstrip BPF with 10% bandwidth was constructed using
two of the proposed 2 SIRs with a stepped impedance ratio ( )
of 0.528. The experimental result shows that the filter can achieve
low in-band loss and out-of-band attenuation of 52.6 dB up to
3 0 . The lowest spurious resonance frequency is shifted to 3 0 as
opposed to 2.5 0 in conventional 2 SIRs with the same value.
(

Index TermsBandpass filters (BPFs), microstrip, transmission

line resonators.

I. INTRODUCTION
ICROWAVE filters are important components in wireless communication systems. Good microwave filters
should have an ability to suppress out-of-band signals while
providing low in-band loss. Moreover, filters should be compact
and inexpensive to fabricate.
Stepped impedance resonators are widely used in filter designs to suppress spurious response [1][3]. To maximize the
value
out-of-band attenuation, the stepped impedance ratio
used in the SIR is set to a small value [1], [3]. As a result,
the quality factor of the SIR is reduced especially when narrow
traces are used and the in-band insertion loss of the filter using
this SIR becomes high.
In the previous work [2], we proposed the double split-end
4 SIR. The filter constructed using this technique is very
compact, simple to design and provide very good in-band and
out-of-band characteristics. However, it requires a grounded termination which increases the filter fabrication complexity.
In this letter, a 2 SIR with internal couplings is introduced.
The 2 SIR is integrated with an equivalent impedance inverter and a transmission zero close to in-band. When used in

Manuscript received March 2, 2006; revised Apri. 25, 2006.

K. U-yen, E. J. Wollack, and T. Doiron are with NASA Goddard Space Flight
Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 USA (e-mail: kuyen@pop500.gsfc.nasa.gov).
J. Papapolymerou and J. Laskar are with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332 USA
(e-mail: papapol@ece.gatech.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LMWC.2006.879494

Fig. 1. Theresonator revolution steps starting with (a) the conventional =2
SIR, (b) main resonator: the split-folded =2 SIR at center (solid lines) and at
sides (dashed line), (c) the final =2 SIR, with stepped impedance stubs inserted,
coupled to other SIRs, (d) the SIRs even-mode quarter-circuit model, and (e)
the SIRs odd-mode quarter-circuit model.

single-layer filter design without vias, it reduces the size of the

filter footprint significantly. Moreover, an additional stepped
impedance open (SIO) stub is used to control the lowest evenmode resonance of the SIR such that the filter does not require
value to obtain a wide stop-band bandSIRs with a small
width. In this letter, we present the result of the filter fabricated
using the proposed structure. The experimental observations are
in reasonable agreement with the theoretical predictions.
II. STEPPED IMPEDANCE RESONATOR
WITH INTERNAL COUPLING
Consider the conventional 2 SIR, as shown in Fig. 1(a), it
consists of three lines. The line in the middle section has the
characteristic impedance of . The others have the characteristic impedance of . At , the open-end of the resonator is
transformed to a virtual ground at the center of the resonator.
and
lines are split
Then as shown in Fig. 1(b), both
and folded in perpendicular to its structure to produce a more
compact structure. The split
and
sections have electrical

1531-1309/$20.00 2006 IEEE

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IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 16, NO. 8, AUGUST 2006

lengths of
and , respectively. As shown in Fig 1(c), the
SIRs internal coupling is formed by inserting SIO stubs around
the center. The SIO stub is constructed from two lines connected in series, each of which has characteristic impedances
and
and electrical lengths of
and
, respecof
tively. These electrical lengths are tuned such that the SIO stub
provides a virtual ground at . When connected to the parallel
line with the characteristic impedance of 2 in (1), it forms a
and 2
are its
grounded-end antiparallel coupler where 2
even- and odd-mode characteristic impedance
(1)
Using the SIO stub allows the lowest even-mode resonance of
the SIR to shift away from as discussed in Section III. Since
the proposed SIR is symmetric in both and axis, it can be
modeled using the quarter of the circuit [see the dark gray area
in Fig. 1(c)] in even and odd modes, as shown in Fig. 1(d) and
(e), respectively. The fundamental resonance condition of this
SIR is as follows [4]:
(2)
where the stepped impedance ratio is defined as
and are the electrical lengths of the line
and , respecand
are chosen such that the antiparallel coutively. The
pler generate transmission zeros frequency at the desired out-ofand
band location [2], whereas the conditions
are applied. The minimum length of the 2
SIR is used in this letter to reduce the overall filter size (i.e.,
). The split-end sections on the left and the right
side of the SIR have the characteristic impedance of
(3)
and 2
are even- and odd-mode impedance of
where 2
the opened-end line 2 . They are used for coupling between
SIRs to form a filter response. The admittance inverter for this
coupler, which is used for filter designs, is derived in [2].
III. RESONATORS SPURIOUS SUPPRESSION
CAPABILITY FROM SIO STUBS
This letter is focused on the filter design technique using
the proposed SIR to suppress the lowest spurious resonance
frequency. The filters out-of-band suppression capability depends on two factors. First, it depends on the value as it defines the separation between
and its lowest resonance mode
[4]. Second, it depends on the SIO stub which has the input
impedance as follows:
(4)
where
. At , it behaves as a virtual ground at
0. The effect of the variable
AA in Fig. 1(d), thus
, and
on filter responses as described below.

Fig. 2. Frequency responses of the decibal jS j of fourth-order filters using

the proposed SIRs with R = 0.528. The nominal design (bold solid line) has
R = R = 0.528; R = 1;  =  =  = 36 . Other responses are obtained by only adjusting either R (where R = R = 0.528, and  =  =
36 ) or R and u (where R = 1, and R = 0.528) from the nominal design.

A. Effect of the R Variable

The
value in SIRs controls the bandwidth of the filter, as
.
well as its out-of-band suppression capability, given
to be close to
First, the bandwidth of the filter relies on
in order for each 2 SIR in the filter to behave as
zero at
two coupled quarter-wavelength ( 4) SIRs. When the SIO stub
is combined with the main resonator at AA in Fig. 1(d), a
is also generated on the low
transmission zero frequency
1, 0.2, and
frequency side of as shown in Fig. 2 when
0 is formed when the opened end of 2
line is transformed
and 2
to a virtual ground at the connection between 2
lines. approaches zero as
decreases to zero.
Second, the attenuation at the lowest spurious frequency
of the filter also relies on the value
. As
is close to zero,
the main resonator behaves close to a 4 SIR and its lowest
is suppressed.
even-mode resonance frequency
B. Effect of the

and

Variable

and values can be adjusted such that

of the SIR
The
is shifted away from . The maximum separation between
and
is obtained when
2/3 as well as using small
value [3]. This effect is demonstrated in Fig. 2 where
1
1 and where
0.3 and
2/3.
and
IV. FILTER DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION
A fourth-order bandpass filter (BPF) can be constructed
as shown in Fig. 3. The filters coefficients are based on an
equal-ripple filter prototype. The prototype microstrip filter has
a center frequency at 1.41 GHz and has 10% bandwidth. It will
be used in the NASAs Aquarius satellite to reject out-of-band
spurious response up to 6 GHz while providing rejection from
the on-board radar instrument at 1.265 GHz. A 0.635-mm-thick
Rogers Duroid 6010 substrate is used in the design. Overall,
the filter has a dimension of 44 mm
35 mm. Its detailed
dimension is provided in Table I.

U-YEN et al.: BANDPASS FILTER DESIGN

Fig. 3. Physical layout of the fourth-order filter on 0.635-mm-thick Rogers

Duroid 6010 substrate, Z = 50
.

445

Fig. 5. Measured and simulated jS

the fourth-order BPF in Fig. 3.

and jS

in decibal versus frequency of

TABLE I
FILTERS DETAIL DIMENSION IN MILLIMETER

ments simulation. Using the propose SIRs alone in filter design

by more than 20 dB. The filter provides at
can suppress
least 49 dB of attenuation at 1.265 GHz and has the minimum
in-band insertion loss of 1.75 dB, as shown in Fig. 5. The deviation of the value from 1.265 GHz is caused by asymmetric
and
to
and from
parasitic couplings from
and
to
as shown in Fig. 3, whereas the parasitic
and
has a negligible effect
coupling between
on . The proposed filter produces a broadband attenuation of
at least 39.7 dB up to 3.9 . The suppression around 4.24
was as not optimal as in [3] due to transmission zeroes slight
misplacement.
V. CONCLUSION

Fig. 4. Simulated frequency responses of the decibal jS j of the filter in Fig. 3

with a transmission zero placed around f (solid line) and without transmission
zero at f (dashed line). The dotted line is the theoretical filter response using
a transmission line model, including a transmission zero at f .

The internal spacing

and the inter-stage spacing
shown in Fig. 3 are adjusted to provide the proper filter coupling coefficient. Two high impedance 4 lines with the line
and
are tapped from the left and right SIR,
width of
respectively.
, and
are set to 0.528, 0.3, and 1, re36
20 , and
40 . From
spectively, thus
of the SIR, the lowest even-mode
the given parameters,
and odd-mode frequencies can be determined to be at 3 and
4 , respectively. The line lengths of
and
are
adjusted such that the coupling sections generate transmission
zeros at 3 3.9 , and 4 , respectively, to optimally reject
is adthe spurious response of the filter. The line length
justed in coordination with the SIO stubs width
and
such that a transmission zero is generated close to 1.265 GHz.
The filter is designed and simulated using Ansoft Designer.
The theoretical result in Fig. 4 agrees with the method-of-mo-

A new type of SIR has been proposed. The use of a built-in

internal coupler reduces the number of 2 SIRs required by
the filter design. The proposed SIR also shifts the filters lowest
spurious resonance frequency to be higher than the maximum
limit of the conventional 2 SIR. The single-layer microstrip
filter prototype demonstrates that both low in-band loss and high
out-of-band attenuation can be achieved, simultaneously with
this approach.
REFERENCES
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The design of a compact, wide spurious-free bandwidth bandpass
filter using stepped impedance resonators, in Proc. 35th Eur. Microw.
Conf., Paris, France, Oct. 2005, pp. 925928.
[2] , A planar bandpass filter design with extended rejection bandwidth using double split-end stepped impedance resonators, IEEE
Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 54, no. 3, pp. 12371244, Mar.
2006.
[3] J.-T. Kuo and E. Shih, Microstrip stepped impedance resonator
bandpass filter with an extended optimal rejection bandwidth, IEEE
Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 51, no. 5, pp. 15541559, May
2003.
[4] M. Makimoto and S. Yamashita, Bandpass filters using parallel
coupled stripline stepped impedance resonators, IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., vol. MTT-28, no. 12, pp. 14131417, Dec.
1980.