Compact Wideband Balanced Bandpass Filters With Very Broad Common-Mode and Differential-Mode Stopbands

Compact balanced bandpass filters based on a combination of multisection mirrored stepped-impedance resonators and interdigital capacitors are presented in this paper. The considered filter topology is useful to achieve wide bandwidths for the differential mode, with broad stop bands for that mode, as well as very efficient common-mode suppression. By conveniently adjusting the transmission zeros for both operation modes, the differential-and common-mode stopbands can be extended up to significantly high frequencies. Filter size and this differential- and common-mode stopband performance are the main relevant characteristics of the proposed balanced filters. The potential of the approach is illustrated by the design of a prototype order-5 balanced bandpass filter, with central frequency f
₀
= 1.8 GHz, 48% fractional bandwidth (corresponding to 55.4% -3-dB bandwidth), and 0.04-dB ripple level. The filter is automatically synthesized by means of an aggressive space-mapping software tool, specifically developed, and two (pre- and post-) optimization algorithms, necessary to determine the transmission-zero frequencies. The designed filter is as small as 0.48λ
_g
×0.51λ
_g
, where λg is the guided wavelength at the central filter frequency, and the differential-mode stopband extends up to at least 6.5 GHz with more than 22-dB rejection. The common-mode suppression is better than 28 dB from dc up to at least 6.5 GHz.