Ultra wideband bandpass filter using embedded stepped impedance resonators on multilayer liquid crystal polymer substrate

This letter proposes an ultra wideband (UWB) bandpass filter (BPF) based on embedded stepped impedance resonators (SIRs). In this study, broad side coupled patches and high impedance microstrip lines are adopted as quasi-lumped elements for realizing the coupling between adjacent SIRs, which are used to suppress stopband harmonic response. An eight-pole UWB BPF is developed from lump-element bandpass prototype and verified by full-wave simulation. The proposed filter is fabricated using multilayer liquid crystal polymer (LCP) process and measured using vector network analyzer. Good agreement between simulated and measured response is observed. The measurement results show that the fabricated filter has a low insertion loss of 0.18 dB at center frequency 6.05 GHz, an ultra wide fractional bandwidth of 127.3% and excellent stopband rejection level higher than 32.01 dB from 10.9 to 18.0 GHz. © 2008 IEEE.