Performance Analysis of Reconfigurable Bandpass Filters With Continuously Tunable Center Frequency and Bandwidth

This paper presents a comparison and performance evaluation of three different technologies for the implementation of tunable filters utilizing semiconductor varactors, commercially available barium strontium titanate (BST) thin film and screen-printed BST thick-film varactors. To identify the most suitable technology for applications in low power receiving up to high-power transmitting stages, the performance evaluation is carried out with the same tunable hairpin filter design. While the center frequency of the proposed tunable filter structure is tuned by varactors loading the filter resonators, the bandwidth is controlled by coupling varactors between adjacent resonators. The filters are designed for a center frequency range from 700 MHz to 1 GHz and for bandwidth tuning from 60 to 150 MHz. The tunable filters are evaluated and compared with regard to their tunability, quality factor, linearity (intermodulation products of third order), and power handling capability. In conclusion, the tunable hairpin filter based on semiconductor varactor diodes offers the largest center frequency tuning range of 390 MHz with a transmission between −1.5 and −7 dB, whereas the BST thin- and thick-film-varactors-based filters exhibit high linearity with an IIP3 between 39 and 60 dBm. Moreover, large signal characterization reveals that the BST thick-film-varactors-based filter structure has the best power handling capability of up to 41dBm.