Design of Compact Composite Microstrip Low Pass Filter Using MEMS Technology

This paper presents the design technique of a compact composite microstrip filter operating at ultra high frequency (UHF) band and its fabrication using micro-electro mechanical system MEMS technology. The fringing compensation method is applied into the design of the microstrip line transformation from lumped element. The filter lumped circuits and microstrip line circuit were designed and simulated using Advanced Design Software (ADS) and fabricated on silicon substrates to obtain the best filter characteristic based on S-parameter. The measured and simulated results have achieved a good agreement within the frequency of interest. This shows that the fringing compensation method of transforming lumped element into microstrip line is able to solve the conventional design of complexity size of circuit of composite low pass filter (LPF) into microstrip line. The proposed filter design can replace the conventional filters in wireless communication as they offer better performance at lower cost in the RF microwave communication applications.