Wideband Balanced-to-Unbalanced Bandpass Filters Synthetically Designed With Chebyshev Filtering Response

In this paper, two wideband balanced-to-unbalanced (balun) bandpass filters (BPFs) are synthetically designed with three- and four-pole filtering responses, respectively. Based on the simplified even- and odd-mode equivalent circuits of the proposed three-pole balun BPF, the exact impedance value of the cascaded microstrip sections connected with two balanced ports is first determined in order to attain a perfectly matched S-matrix. By the virtue of the modified two-port transmission-line network with asymmetrical port impedances, a quasi-Chebyshev filtering response for this three-pole balun filter is theoretically presented. Next, to improve the in-band performance, especially at the high frequency, a four-pole balun BPF designed with a folded slotline resonator is proposed. Via the virtually short-ended microstrip stubs of the modified two-port equivalent network, the four-pole frequency response can be directly analyzed with the Chebyshev polynomial function. For these two proposed wideband balun filters, their theoretical and simulated results are well confirmed by the circuit model responses with the same impedance values of the simulated microstrip and slotline resonators and the extracted turns ratios of the employed transformers. Finally, two prototype wideband balun BPFs are fabricated and measured to verify our design predictions.