Compact Wide-Band Bandpass Filter Using Microstrip to Slotline Broadside-Coupling

In this letter, two quarter wavelength microstrip stubs with a shorted slot line resonator etched in the ground plane is used to design a compact wideband bandpass filter (BPF). Wideband characteristics are obtained using broadside-coupling between the stubs and the slot line. 3-dB fractional bandwidth (FBW) is varied by changing coupled line widths. The filter has the advantages of compactness, wide bandwidth, low passband insertion loss (IL), low group delay variation and ease of fabrication. One prototype fabricated filter has a FBW of 60.0% with a maximum passband IL of 0.9 dB and group delay variation of 0.40 nS. BPF occupying area is less than 0.19lambdagtimes0.20lambdag, where lambdag is the guided wavelength at midband frequency 2.5 GHz. Good agreement between measurements and simulations are obtained.