Dispersion analysis of microstrip lines with nonrectangular cross-sections

A volume integral equation formulation incorporated with the Galerkin´s method of moments is proposed to compute the conductor loss of multilayered microstrip lines. The effects of the conductor thickness, the strip cross-sectional shape, and the proximity of the ground planes on the dispersion relation are examined. Results show that due to skin effect, the conductor loss is larger for the case with longer strip cross-sectional contour. It is also found that the conductor loss is less sensitive to the strip thickness as the latter is larger than three skin depths. Moving the ground planes closer to the conductor strip will result in larger loss, as was observed in this work