A 4th-Order LTCC Bandpass Filter with Both Tunable Center Frequency and Bandwidth

Abstract

Reconfigurable filters are one of the key components in microwave communication systems. This letter presents a 4th-order low-temperature cofired ceramic (LTCC) bandpass filter with both a tunable center frequency and bandwidth. This filter has four resonators, and each resonator consists of a circular patch, a center-through via, and two varactors. The varactors are placed on the top and bottom layers of the ceramic medium, which can effectively reduce the size of the 4th-order tunable filter. Three transmission zeros (TZs) are introduced to improve the upper stopband rejection. This filter demonstrates a 3-dB bandwidth (BW) range of 170–220 MHz around 2.86 GHz and a 3-dB BW range of 190–320 MHz around 3.2 GHz with a 13 dB minimum return loss. Insertion loss ranging from 3.5 dB to 6.85 dB has been obtained. The overall circuit size, including the package, is 11 mm × 6 mm × 1.6 mm.