A novel compact asymmetric coplanar strip fed planar antenna with defected ground structure and defected microstrip structure for dual band application is presented. The proposed antenna is composed of defect in both ground plane and radiating strip. The antenna has an overall dimension of 21 × 15.35 × 1.6 mm3 when printed on a substrate with dielectric constant of 4.4 and loss tangent of 0.02. The antenna resonating at two different frequencies of 3.5 and 5.5 GHz is covering worldwide interoperability microwave access and wireless local area network bands. The planar design, simple feeding technique, and compactness make it easy for the integration of the antenna into the circuit board. Details of the antenna design, simulated, and experimental results are presented and discussed. Simulation tool, based on the method of moments (Mentor Graphics IE3D version 15.10) has been used to analyze and optimize the antenna.

In this paper, multiple-input–multiple output (MIMO) antenna with dual-band frequency reconfiguration is presented. The proposed antenna consists of two symmetrical pentagon radiating elements. These radiating elements support bands of 1.5 GHz (GPS) and 2.4 GHz (Wi-Fi) frequency. The two PIN diodes are appropriately located on slot line in order to control the current flowing through the radiator. All simulated results are compared and confirmed with measured results. The antenna has VSWR ⩽1.8 and isolation of −28 dB. The advantage of this antenna is that bandwidth is increased by switching of PIN diode in the range from 80 MHz up to maximum 300 MHz. These characteristics demonstrate that proposed antenna is an attractive solution for a multimode application such as GPS, Wi-Fi routers, vehicular communication, etc. where wideband is required.

Design guidelines for fractional-N phase-locked loops with a high spectral purity of the output signal are presented. Various causes for phase noise and spurious tones (spurs) in integer-N and fractional-N phase-locked loops (PLLs) are briefly described. These mechanisms include device noise, quantization noise folding, and noise coupling from charge pump (CP) and reference input buffer to the voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) and vice versa through substrate and bondwires. Remedies are derived to mitigate the problems by using proper PLL parameters and a careful chip layout. They include a large CP current, sufficiently large transistors in the reference input buffer, linearization of the phase detector, a high speed of the programmable frequency divider, and minimization of the cross-coupling between the VCO and the other building blocks. Examples are given based on experimental PLLs in SiGe BiCMOS technologies for space communication and wireless base stations.

This article presents a compact novel quasi-self-complementary semi-octagonal-shaped antenna for ultra-wideband (UWB) application. The proposed novel structure is fed by a microstrip line where different rectangular truncation is etched to the ground plane as an impedance matching element, which results for much wider impedance bandwidth (VSWR<2) from 2.9 to 20 GHz. In order to obtain band-notched characteristics at 5.5 GHz, an open-ended, quarter wavelength, spiral-shaped stub is introduced in the vicinity of the truncated part of the ground plane. An equivalent circuit model is adopted to investigate the band rejection characteristics of the ground plane stub. Sharpness of the rejection band can be controlled by maintaining the gap between stub resonator and the slotted periphery of ground plane. The proposed antenna design is validated by experimental measurements.

A compact ultrawideband (UWB) bandpass filter (BPF) is designed by harnessing the efficacy of a Pythagorean tree fractal shape stub-loaded resonator. The design inherently provides the passband transmission poles, which make it convenient to be used in wide passband filtering circuits. The number and the position of the resonating modes can be controlled by increasing the iterations of the Pythagorean tree, as analyzed using odd- and even-mode analysis. Design steps of the BPF are detailed. The designed UWB BPF takes up a small circuit area of (12.13 × 9.59) mm2. The proposed design is fabricated and measured to verify the simulated results. The stopband is extended up to 17.5 GHz with a maximum attenuation of 15 dB.

A super-wideband microstrip fractal antenna is designed with miniaturized dimensions of 21 mm × 23.5 mm × 1 mm and generation of dual rejection bands for WLAN/WiMAX systems has been achieved. The triangular fractal shape slots are placed inside a circular patch and the antenna is miniaturized by using a repetition frequency resonance technique. The proposed antenna frequency range 2.6–40 GHz operates for VSWR of less than 2. Two band rejections for the frequency ranges 5.1–5.8 GHz and 3.4–3.7 GHz are created by one enhanced slot at the feed line and one split-ring resonator at the back of antenna. HFSS 3D software was used for computer simulation. The proposed antenna is fabricated on the FR4 substrate with 1 mm thickness. The measurement data show good agreement with the simulation results.

The design of a novel microstrip ultra-wideband (UWB) bandpass filter with quad narrow notched-band functionality is presented. The filter consists of a multi-mode resonator (MMR) constituted from two modified stepped-impedance stubs that generate six resonate modes, five of which are within the UWB passband where the sixth mode is used to extend the upper stopband of the filter. Two transmission zeroes are located at the 3-dB edge of the passband to enhance the filter's selectivity with a skirt factor of 0.955. The MMR is fed through asymmetric interdigital coupled-lines feed to produce controllable notched-band. Additional notched-bands are generated with a parasitic coupled line. The notched-bands are centered exactly to eliminate interference at 5.2 GHz (wireless local area network (WLAN)), 5.8 GHz (WLAN), 6.8 GHz (radio-frequency identification), and 8 GHz (X-band). Good agreement is obtained between simulation and measurement results. The highly compact filter has dimensions of 8.0 × 9.83 mm2.

This paper presents a low insertion loss low-pass filter based on the spoof surface plasmon polariton (SSPP) with single comb-shape. Compared with traditional ones, the proposed filter provides lower insertion loss and return loss by optimizing the structural parameters of the mode conversion and SSPP parts. According to the measurement results, the average insertion loss of the fabricated filter is 0.41 dB and the return loss of which at the near-zero-hertz band is <−25.9 dB. The S parameter comparison result between the unoptimized and optimized filters demonstrates that the optimized filter provides lower insertion loss and return loss, smaller size, and better out-of-band rejection. The dispersion comparison result reveals the reasons behind the improved performances. The better performances of the optimized filter proves that breaking the regularity of traditional SSPP filters is beneficial to the filter's performances.

In order to perform an accurate design, in particular in non-linear circuit, the equivalent circuit of inductors must be precisely described in a wide frequency band. Many models have been proposed to describe the behavior of inductors on lossy substrate. They consist of a great number of elements, often suggested by physical phenomena. Most of them cannot be extracted from measurements. In this paper, we propose a model composed only of elements that can be analytically extracted from measurement results.

The objective is to demonstrate a reproducible carbon nanotube (CNT)-based technology for radio frequency (RF) switch working in the range of 40–60 GHz and fulfilling the specifications: low losses, high isolation, and an operating voltage below 30 V. The first processed component had an operating voltage of 14 V for an ohmic contact in a Nano-Electro Mechanical System (NEMS) tweezer design. This result is confirmed by theory with an operating voltage of 13 V. A capacitive-contact NEMS is also developed using multi-walled CNTs (MWCNTs) coated with a SiO2 dielectric layer deposited by electron beam induced deposition method (EBID). High Frequency Simulation Software (HFSS) RF-simulation on an innovative NEMS geometry shows encouraging results with transmission ratios between “on” state and “off” state up to 34% for ohmic-contact switch and 25% for a capacitive-contact switch.

This paper presents an experimental investigation of two approaches to short-range radar imaging at microwaves by means of ultra-wideband (UWB) technology. The first approach represents a classical synthetic aperture radar (SAR) that employs a transmit–receive antenna pair on mechanical scanner. The second one makes use of a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) antenna array that scans electronically in the horizontal plane and mechanically, installed on the scanner, in the vertical plane. The mechanical scanning in only one direction reduces significantly the measurement time. Two respective prototypes have been built and compared. Both systems comprise the same 10–18 GHz antennas and multi-channel video impulse electronics while the same data processing and imaging method based on Kirchhoff migration is applied to acquired data for digital beamforming. The study has been done for an application of concealed weapon detection.

This paper gives an overview of frequency regulation, standardization, and applications of 60 GHz communication systems. Based on forecasted developments of mobile IP traffic, the motivation for investigating circuits, and systems for the 60 GHz band is underlined. Some physical properties of 60 GHz radio waves are outlined and implications on potential applications are sketched. The current international and European frequency regulation aspects are presented. The main parameters of three different international standards are summarized and compared with each other. Details of channel spacing and channel bonding are given. Based on the investigation of different applications, the main system requirements are derived. Finally, some information on protocol issues and system integration aspects are given.

A dual closed-loop stepped impedance resonator (DCLSIR) is investigated and used in designing a compact microstrip bandpass filter (BPF). The proposed DCLSIR is symmetrical; as a result, the symmetric characteristics of the resonator have been used. The design equations are derived and used to support the circuit design. The center frequency, position of transmission zeros, and fractional bandwidth (FBW) are easily tuned by changing the physical dimensions of the resonator. Three transmission zeros are generated to improve the performance in the upper stopband. A DCLSIR prototype BPF is fabricated with a center frequency of 9.3 GHz, and evaluated to validate the design concept. The measured FBW is 9.25%, the insertion loss is 1.58 dB, and the return loss is over 17 dB. The measurement results agree well with the simulation results.

This paper presents an ultra-wideband coplanar waveguide (CPW)-to-asymmetric coplanar stripline (ACPS) transition based on aluminum nitride (AlN) substrate. The concepts of designing CPW, ACPS, and CPW-to-ACPS transition are explained. In order to suppress parasitic modes, vias going through AlN substrate are added along the ground traces. The signal trace is tapered out and chamfered to reduce the reflection caused by the termination of ground trace. The CPW-to-ACPS transition is designed, fabricated, and measured in a back-to-back configuration. The fabricated CPW-to-ACPS transition can provide a bandwidth of 165 GHz with an associated insertion loss of 3 dB.

In this paper, two asymmetric co-planar waveguide (ACPW) fed circularly polarized (CP) zeroth-order resonance (ZOR) antennas (Antenna I and II) are presented using a composite right and left-handed transmission line (CRLH-TL) approach. By adding a stub on the left side of the ACPW ground and adjusting its length, circularly polarization property has been achieved in Antenna I. The simulated 3 dB axial ratio bandwidth (ARBW) of Antenna I is 1750 MHz (3.50–5.25 GHz). Next, the left side ground plane of Antenna I is further defected by etching a quarter wavelength slit to introduce a notch band (Antenna II). Antenna II has an extended 10 dB return loss bandwidth of 2200 MHz (3.28–5.48 GHz) with a band notch from 4.18–4.65 GHz that isolates the WiMAX and 5.2 GHz WLAN bands. ARBWs of 1080 and 870 MHz are achieved in the first and second band of Antenna II. The overlapping 3 dB ARBW and 10 dB return loss bandwidths of Antenna II in these two bands are 770 and 830 MHz, respectively.

To solve the problems of low gain, narrow bandwidth, and poor radiation directivity of conventional ground penetrating radar antenna, this paper proposes an ultra-wideband and high-gain antipodal tapered slot antenna (ATSA) with planar metamaterial lens. As a constituent part of this lens, a new non-resonant metamaterial unit cell is introduced and analyzed by the full-wave simulation tool. The single-layer planar lens composed of the designed unit cells with different sizes is placed in the maximum radiation direction of the ATSA to greatly enhance its radiation capability. The proposed planar lens antenna has a wide impedance bandwidth of 107.4% (2.41–8 GHz) and −3 dB gain bandwidth of 54.5% (4–7 GHz), respectively. The gain increases averagely by 6.0 dB in the whole operating frequency band, and the peck gain reaches 15.4 dBi at 5.5 GHz. And its excellent performance shows a high application prospect in ground penetrating radar and microwave imaging system.

In this paper, micromachined devices for millimeter-wave applications at U- and V-bands are presented. These structures are designed using a rectangular coaxial line built of gold-coated SU-8 photoresist layers, where the coaxial center conductor is suspended in air by stubs. The designs include a stepped coplanar waveguide (CPW)-to-coaxial transition at 63 GHz, with an insertion loss of 0.39 dB at 67.75 GHz and a return loss better than −10 dB across the band of operation between 54.7 and 70.3 GHz. Two filters have been designed; one centered at 42 GHz with a 10% bandwidth, and another at 63 GHz with a 5% bandwidth. Measured insertion losses of 0.77 and 2.59 dB were obtained for these filters, respectively. Measured return loss lower than 13.8 dB over the passband was achieved for both designs. The structures presented in this paper involve a low-cost manufacturing process suitable to produce integrated subsystems at millimeter waves.

The implementation of stable, accurate, and wideband second-order microwave integrators (SOMIs) is presented in this paper. These designs of SOMIs are obtained by using different combinations of transmission line sections and shunt stubs in cascading. Particle swarm optimization (PSO), cuckoo search algorithm (CSA), and gravitational search algorithm (GSA) are applied to obtain the optimal values of the characteristic impedances of these line elements to approximate the magnitude response of ideal second-order integrator (SOI). The performance measure criteria for the proposed SOMIs are carried out based on magnitude response, absolute magnitude error, phase response, convergence rate, pole-zero plot, and improvement graph. The simulation results and statistical analysis demonstrate that GSA surpasses the PSO and CSA to approximate the ideal SOI in all state-of-the-art, that is eligible for wide-band microwave integrator. The designed SOMI is compact in size and suitable to cover microwave applications. The magnitude errors for the proposed SOMIs GSA based are as low as 4.9954 and 3.6573, respectively. The structure of the designed SOMI is implemented in the form of microstrip line on RT/Duroid substrate with dielectric constant 2.2 and having height 0.762 mm. The simulated and measured magnitude result agrees well with the ideal one in the frequency range of 3–15 GHz.

In this paper, a new asymmetric structure is proposed for the dual-band unequal application, in which both open- and short-ended stubs are applied. Closed-form design equations are obtained for the proposed power divider using the modified even- and odd-mode analysis method. It is observed that the proposed power divider can operate at high frequency ratio from 2.3 to 3.7 and has a wide operating band. Besides, this proposed circuit can offer flexibility in fabrication. For verification, two power dividers operate at 1/2.5 GHz with different values of line impedance are fabricated and tested. There is good agreement between simulation and experimental results, validating the proposed design concepts.

This paper reports a differential photoreceiver module designed for short reach applications such as access network and data center interconnect. It consists of a monolithically integrated semi-conductor optical amplifier with a PIN photodiode and a linear transimpedance amplifier (TIA) mounted on the same carrier. A matching circuit is placed between the PIN and the TIA in order to increase the cut-off frequency. The module shows a −3 dB bandwidth of 43 GHz, a single-ended conversion gain of 10 000 V/W for an optical input power of −25 dBm and a sensitivity at 40 Gb/s non-return-to-zero operation of −22.5 dBm for a bit error rate of 10−9.