IEEE MICROWAVE AND GUIDED WAVE LETTERS, VOL. 9, NO.

7, JULY 1999 271

Microstrip Cascade Trisection Filter

Chu-Chen Yang and Chi-Yang Chang, Member, IEEE

Abstract— A new configuration of odd-degree cascade trisec-

tion bandpass filter realized by combining microstrip hairpin
resonator and /2-line open-circuited resonator is proposed. The
general asymmetric Chebyshev function is used to synthesize
the cascade trisection prototype. A five-pole microstrip cascade
trisection bandpass filter with two asymmetrically prescribed
transmission zeros located on opposite of the passband is designed
and fabricated. The experimental result matches well with the Fig. 1. Configuration of the CT prototype.
theory.
Index Terms—Cascade trisection network, cross-coupling, hair-
pin resonator.

I. INTRODUCTION (a)

H IGH-PERFORMANCE narrow-band cross-coupled pla-

nar microwave filters having finite transmission zeros
had been proposed for reducing size, weight, and cost. In
[1]–[3], the canonical and cascaded quadruplet (CQ) microstrip (b)
planar filters realized by microstrip square open-loop res- Fig. 2. A trisection realized by combining microstrip hairpin resonator and
onators and hairpin resonators have a symmetrical response. =2-line open-circuited resonator: (a) magnetic cross-coupling and (b) electric
cross-coupling.
The folded diagonally coupled network and cross-coupled
cascade trisection (CT) network generally provide asymmetric
response [4], [5]. In [6] and [7], the asymmetric bandpass shev network is
filter with diagonal cross-coupling is achieved by lumped
element. For planar resonators, such as microstrip open-loop (1)
resonators and hairpin resonators, the diagonal cross-coupling
is difficult to layout to obtain the desired coupling coefficients where is a constant controlled the ripple level. The function
between resonators. The CT network shown in Fig. 1 can described by Cameron [5] was
be easily achieved by using a microstrip resonator. Each
trisection realizes one imaginary axis transmission zero and (2)
the prescribed transmission zeros can be arbitrarily placed in
the complex -plane. The trisection pseudointerdigital filter
and by Chambers and Rhodes [9] was
with one side attenuation pole has the advantage of the
application for diplexer/multiplexer [8]. For compactness of
filter, different planar resonators would be combined for CT (3)
network. One example, shown in Fig. 2, is the combination of
a microstrip hairpin resonator and a -line open-circuited where and is the
resonator. The cross-coupling between hairpin resonator is position of the th transmission zero in the complex -plane.
the magnetic coupling in Fig. 2(a) and electric coupling in For a filter with same degree and same transmission
Fig. 2(b). In Fig. 2(a), the coupling coefficient of the magnetic zero locations, the two return loss functions derived
cross-coupling is negative and the attenuation pole is located from (2) and (3) have similar transmission zeros (symmetric
below the passband. In Fig. 2(b), the coupling coefficient of with the imaginary axis) and reflection zeros. The synthesized
the electric cross-coupling is positive and the attenuation pole network based on (2) and (3) should have the same response.
is located above the passband. In Fig. 1, each node represents a shunt capacitor and
a shunt frequency invariant susceptance . The main cou-
II. SYNTHESIS PROCEDURE OF THE CT NETWORK plings, , represented by a solid line,
For unity load and generator impedance, the transfer func- are normalized to unity and the dashed line represent the
tion of a lossless reciprocal 2-port th degree Cheby- cross-couplings, , between the non-
adjacent resonators. This CT network can be synthesized
Manuscript received March 22, 1999. by the transfer function (2), (3) with poles
The authors are with the Department of Communication Engineering,
National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, R.O.C. and prescribed finite transmission zeros. The equivalent
Publisher Item Identifier S 1051-8207(99)06042-0. circuit of the CT network is shown in Fig. 3, in which the
1051–8207/99$10.00  1999 IEEE
272 IEEE MICROWAVE AND GUIDED WAVE LETTERS, VOL. 9, NO. 7, JULY 1999

Fig. 3. Equivalent circuit of the CT prototype.

TABLE I
PROTOTYPE ELEMENT VALUES AND DESIGN
PARAMETERS OF THE FIVE-POLE CT BANDPASS FILTER

Fig. 4. Circuit configuration of a five-pole microstrip CT bandpass filter.

cross-couplings are . Following

the synthesis method developed by Cameron [5], the low-pass
prototype element values would be obtained. For narrow-band
applications, an approximation result can be derived after a
low-pass to bandpass transformation. The resonant frequency
and the susceptance slope parameter of the th resonator are
[10]

(4)

where and are the center frequency and bandwidth of

the passband.
The external value of the resonator 1 and coupled
to the termination and the coupling coefficient between two
resonators are

(5) Fig. 5. Measured result of a five-pole microstrip CT bandpass filter.

As described in [5], the attenuation pole above the passband relative dielectric constant of 3.38. The resonators 1, 3, 5
results in a positive cross-coupling in value and the attenuation are realized by microstrip hairpin resonator and resonators
pole below the passband results in a negative cross-coupling 2, 4 by microstrip -line open-circuited resonator. The
in value. prototype element values and the design parameters are shown
in Table I. In Table I, the resonant frequency of resonator 4
III. EXAMPLE OF MICROSTRIP CT BANDPASS FILTER is higher than that of resonator 2 so that the line-length of
A five-pole CT bandpass filter with 0.15-dB ripple and the resonator 4 would be shorter than that of resonator 2.
two asymmetric poles, and , placed on opposite The calculation of the coupling coefficient is similar to [3]
sides of the passband is designed for 3-GHz center frequency and an EM simulator—IE3D from Zeland Software Inc.—is
and 3.33% fractional bandwidth. As mentioned previously, used. The bend of left-hand side of the resonator 2 is to
the combination of microstrip hairpin resonator and - achieve the desired coupling coefficient between the resonators
line open-circuited resonator is appropriate for CT filter. The 1 and 2. The mixed (electric and magnetic) couplings between
circuit configuration is shown in Fig. 4 and is fabricated resonators 1 and 2 and between resonators 2 and 3 are out
on a Rogers RO4003 substrate with thickness 20 ml and of phase. On the other hand, the mixed couplings between
YANG AND CHANG: MICROSTRIP CASCADE TRISECTION FILTER 273

resonators 3 and 4 and between resonators 4 and 5 are in phase. CT bandpass filter has been demonstrated. The measured result
The measured result is shown in Fig. 5. In Fig. 5, the measured shows good agreement with the theory.
center frequency is 2.94 GHz and 3.33% fractional bandwidth.
The shift of the center frequency can be compensated by REFERENCES
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