Miniaturization of Embedded Bandpass Filter in LTCC Multilayer Substrate for WiMAX Applications

Abstract

A compact radio frequency (RF) bandpass filter (BPF) in low temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) is suggested for WiMAX applications. The center frequency (<TEX>$f_0$</TEX>) of the BPF is 5.5 GHz and its pass band or 3-dB bandwidth is 700 MHz to cover all the three major bands, low and middle unlicensed national information infrastructure (U-NII; 5.15-5.35 GHz), World Radiocommunication Conference (5.47-5.725 GHz), and upper U-NII/industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) (5.725-5.85 GHz), for the WiMAX frequency band. A lumped circuit element design-the 5th order capacitively coupled Chebyshev BPF topology-is adopted. In order to design a compact RF BPF, a very thin (<TEX>$43.18{\mu}m$</TEX>) ceramic layer is used in LTCC substrate. An interdigital BPF is also designed in silicon substrate to compare the size and performance of the lumped circuit element BPF. Due to the high relative dielectric constant (<TEX>${\varepsilon}_r$</TEX> = 11.9) of the silicon substrate, the quarter-wavelength resonator of the interdigital BPF can be reduced. In comparison to the 5th order interdigital BPF at <TEX>$f_0$</TEX> = 5.5 GHz, the lumped element design is 24% smaller in volume and has 17 and 7 dB better attenuation characteristics at <TEX>$f_0{\pm}0.75$</TEX> GHz.