Novel Tunable Isolation Network Used in Ring-Type Single-to-Balanced, Power-Dividing, and Single-Ended Filter With Arbitrary Power-Division Ratios

In this article, a novel tunable isolation network and a novel ring-type reconfigurable single-to-balanced (SE-BAL), power-dividing (PD), and single-to-single-ended (SE) bandpass filter is proposed. The tunable isolation network consists of a simple $\pi $ -type resistive network with tunable varactors, while the proposed filter consists of three ring-type stepped impedance resonators (SIRs) connected by varactors in between. By simply combining the proposed tunable isolation network and the proposed ring-type reconfigurable filter, it can achieve multiple reconfigurable functions among SE-BAL filtering, PD filtering, and conventional SE filtering with fully matched three ports, arbitrary power-division ratios (PDRs), high output isolations, and excellent amplitude and phase balance, in addition to continuous frequency and independent bandwidth tuning. The proposed filter is demonstrated using the microstrip line technology. The measured results show that the SE-BAL, PD, and two SE filtering functions can continuously cover the frequency ranges of 1.03-1.61, 1.01-1.53, 1.03-1.56, and 1.06-1.48 GHz with -1-dB bandwidth tuning of 35-80, 50-140, 60-130, and 70-140 MHz, respectively; the 1-, 3-, and 5-dB PDRs have been demonstrated for both SE-BAL and PD filtering modes. The measured output return losses and isolation are better than 19 and 18 dB, respectively, for SE-BAL filtering mode and 20 and 16 dB, respectively, for PD filtering mode. Good agreement is obtained between the simulated and measured results.