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This paper reports on the RF design of fully reconfigurable quasi-elliptic-type single- and multi-band microwave bandpass filters (BPFs) and duplexers. They are based on series-cascaded resonators and multi-resonant/multi-band cells that produce frequency-reconfigurable poles and transmission zeros (TZs). By appropriately tuning the resonant frequencies of their constituent resonators, multiple levels of transfer-function adaptivity can be obtained. These capabilities include center-frequency and bandwidth tuning, as well as intrinsic RF switching-off (i.e., without the use of RF switches). As opposed to conventional BPF tuning mechanisms, the aforementioned reconfiguration characteristics avoid the use of tunable couplings. The basic operating principles of the engineered resonator-cascade BPF concept are presented through a three-pole/two-TZ example. Afterward, methods for expanding the proposed filter design approach to higher order, multi-band, and multi-port (e.g., duplexers) realizations are explained through coupling-matrix-based analysis. For practical-demonstration purposes, four L-band tunable microstrip prototypes were developed and measured. They include: 1) a five-pole/four-TZ BPF; 2) a five-pole/two-TZ BPF; 3) a dual-band BPF with two three-pole/two-TZ passbands; and 4) an RF duplexer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a novel triplexer using the substrate-integrated suspended line technology is proposed. Two matching circuits are designed to connect the three filter channels for the triplexer construction. The used bandpass filters are composed of a low-pass filter and a high-pass filter, and they have advantages of high controllability and low insertion loss. For the proposed triplexer, two adjacent filter channels compose a duplexer. Based on the design consideration, the triplexer can be extended to a multiplexer. The proposed design is further improved by using a patterned suspended substrate for loss reduction. The triplexer achieves good isolations among the three ports and low insertion losses of 1.4/1.3/0.8 dB for the three channels of 0.8, 2.5, and 5.8 GHz, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel, tunable, frequency-division duplexing radio frequency (RF) front end that combines passive and active self-interference (SI) cancellation. An electrical-balance duplexer is used to passively cancel transmitter noise in the receive band, and an active canceller is employed to suppress SI in the transmit (Tx)-band. Subsystem specifications are developed, and a system-level analysis of noise and SI powers in this novel architecture is provided, thereby illustrating its operation. A proof-of-concept demonstrator, built from a software-defined radio and discrete RF components, has been characterized across a range of duplex configurations in the 700–950-MHz range and also at 1900 (Long-Term Evolution (LTE) band 3) and 2600 MHz (LTE band 7). The prototype achieves an impressive 6.0–7.4-dB noise figure in the presence of a +27-dBm LTE uplink Tx blocker for duplex separations of 47.5 MHz and above. The duplexer has also been tested against reference sensitivity test cases defined in the 3GPP LTE specification, demonstrating specification compliant sensitivity in LTE bands 28 (700 MHz), 3, and 7. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a highly integrated frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) radar system with a single-antenna interface for range sensing is proposed. In this paper, a circulator structure was developed and used in the radar system with the single-antenna interface. This structure capitalizes on frequency orthogonality to separate transmitted and received signals; thus, the isolation can be improved by using integrated filters to further suppress transmitter leakage. Without an additional back-end leakage cancellation mechanism and antenna tuner, the single-antenna FMCW radar system can be devised. The proposed system is composed of a radar transceiver, a frequency synthesizer, an analog signal processor, and an AD converter; the system is fabricated using a 65-nm CMOS technology, occupies a chip area of 1.9 mm2, and consumes 147-mW dc power under a 1.2-V power supply. The implemented front-end circuit can provide an output power of 10.5 dBm with power efficiency of 30%, over 1-GHz impedance matching, an insertion loss of 2 dB, a maximum noise figure of 16.8 dB (including the following IF amplifier), $P_{1\,\text {dB}}$ of 2 dBm, and IIP3 of 7 dBm. A wireless measurement process proved that the system can provide a 37-cm range resolution over a 50-m range for a $20 \times 20$ cm2 copper plate. Finally, an FMCW radar front-end board and a digital signal processing board were implemented for data analysis, thus completing the FMCW radar sensor unit. The proposed system can be utilized for multiple applications including 1-D object tracking, 2-D localization, and 3-D object tracking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A highly integrated three-state diplexer (TSD) on a single planar elliptical structure is for the first time presented in this paper. Three resonant modes are investigated in a planar elliptical resonator, e.g., two TM11 degenerate modes and one TM21 mode. These three resonant modes are designed to form three filtering channels, which are further combined to generate three states of a diplexer, namely, TSD. The planar elliptical triple-mode resonator is fed by three microstrip lines to form a triple-mode TSD. In order to validate the concept, the designed planar TSD is fabricated and measured. The measured results are in good agreement with the simulated ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the design consideration on a converged Rx surface acoustic wave (SAW) duplexer module for integrated RF front end. Two different matching-circuit and notch-circuit configurations were examined with importance placed on electrical characteristics (insertion loss and isolation of duplexer) and simplification of module, respectively. From circuit simulations and examinations, we verified that a simplified design was best in terms of both characteristics and space in the case of a finite inductor's Q. We also fabricate a quad-band converged Rx module (Band I + II, V + VIII) using an SAW duplexer and verified that its electrical characteristics agree well with our simulation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A class of frequency-reconfigurable input-reflectionless/absorptive RF/microwave filters is presented. They consist of tunable complementary-duplexer architectures that are composed of a main and an auxiliary channel with opposite filtering transfer functions. By loading the auxiliary channel with a reference-impedance resistor and by taking the output node of the main channel as the output terminal of the overall circuit, a filtering network of the same type of the main channel with theoretically perfect input-reflectionless behavior at all frequencies can be realized. This technique can be applied to design spectrally agile completely input-reflectionless filters with any kind of transfer function, such as low-pass, high-pass, and single/multiband bandpass/bandstop filters. The theoretical analysis of the first-order absorptive bandpass/bandstop filtering sections based on a coupling-matrix formulation is detailed. Furthermore, the synthesis of high-selectivity reflectionless filters either by cascading multiple first-order cells or using high-order channels in a single complementary duplexer is also described. For practical-demonstration purposes, frequency-tunable lumped-element and microstrip prototypes are manufactured and characterized. They correspond to first- and second-order bandpass/bandstop filters. In addition, their in-series cascade connection is used to implement a bandpass filter with spectrally controllable passband and out-of-band notches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an adaptive RF front-end (RFFE) architecture that uses an electrical-balance duplexer (EBD) and tuned surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonators to enable adaptive dual-frequency isolation suited for LTE's frequency-division duplex (FDD) mode of operation. Alternatively, in the in-band full-duplex (IBFD) mode, the EBD cancels the in-band TX self-interference directly at RF for increased channel capacity. Furthermore, the EBD's balance network is optimized to reduce the TX insertion loss (IL) below the nominal 3-dB limit in the FDD mode. A 0.18-μm SOI CMOS prototype implements the EBD, low-noise amplifier, and SAW-tuning capacitor banks. The chip is mounted to a module substrate together with the SAWs and matching components. The RFFE achieves >50-dB dual-frequency isolation and 2.6-3.4-dB TX IL in FDD mode, has +58/+42-dBm TX/RX-path IIP3 for an increased IBFD-link budget and handles up to +27.5-dBm TX power in both modes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An electrical-balance duplexer achieving the state-of-the-art linearity and insertion loss (IL) performance is presented, enabled by a partially depleted RF silicon-on-insulator CMOS technology. A single-ended configuration avoids the common-mode isolation problem suffered by topologies with a differential low-noise amplifier. Highly linear switched capacitors allow for impedance balancing to antennas with <1.5:1 voltage standing wave ratio from 1.9 to 2.2 GHz. +70-dBm input-referred third-order intercept point is achieved under high transmitter (TX) power (+30.5 dBm max.). TX IL is <3.7 dB, and receiver IL is <3.9 dB. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper proposes a novel concept of an integrated duplex antenna for realizing a compact multifunction RF front end by integrating a duplexer and a dual-band patch antenna. First, an all-resonator-based duplexer is designed. It is composed of two sets of split-ring resonators as channel filters, which are joined by a dual-mode stub-loaded resonator as the junction resonator. Then, a novel dual-band patch antenna is achieved by coupling a patch with a hairpin resonator through a slot in the ground. Uniform radiation characteristics have been achieved across the two bands. Finally, the duplexer is integrated with the dual-band patch antenna to form a highly integrated duplex antenna by coupling the hairpin resonator to the junction resonator of the duplexer directly. In this process, the 50- $\Omega $ interface and matching network between them are removed, contributing to a compact footprint. The details of codesign approach have been discussed in this paper. Compared with the traditional cascaded duplexer and antennas, this paper is much more compact and integrated but with an improved frequency response. A prototype of an integrated duplex antenna at S-band is fabricated and measured, showing two operation channels of 2.52–2.65 GHz for transmitting and 2.82–2.94 GHz for receiving with an isolation of over 32 dB. The measured results agree well with the simulation results. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a millimeter-wave tunable hybrid-transformer-based duplexer concept with dual-antenna configuration. By using orthogonal sequentially-rotated linearly-polarized antennas and the hybrid-transformer-based duplexer, the transmitter and receiver duplexes the two antennas with orthogonal circular-polarized signals. An on-chip tuning technique using magnetic coupling is introduced to improve the isolation of the duplexer in case of impedance imbalances. An alternative duplexer with a similar principle using an on-board rat-race coupler is also proposed and designed for comparison. In order to demonstrate the isolation with practical antenna connections, prototypes have been developed to integrate the on-chip duplexer and the rat-race coupler with on-board aperture-coupled microstrip antennas with sequential rotation technique. Measurement results demonstrate the orthogonal circular polarizations for the receiver and transmitter modes on both prototypes. The achieved isolation by the on-chip tunable duplexer is better than 50 dB between 30.2 and 31.2 GHz, while the achieved isolation by the rat-race version is about 20 dB in the same bandwidth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A compact 680-GHz waveguide orthomode transducer (OMT) and circular horn combination has been designed, tested, and characterized in a radar transceiver's duplexer. The duplexing capability is implemented by a hybrid waveguide quasi optical solution, combining a linear polarization OMT and an external grating polarizer. Isolation between the OMT's orthogonal ports' flanges was measured with a vector network analyzer to exceed 33 dB over a >10% bandwidth between 630 and 710 GHz. Calibrated Y-factor measurements using a mixer attached to the OMT ports reveal losses through the transmit and receive paths that sum to an average of 4.7 dB of two-way loss over 660–690 GHz. This is consistent with radar sensitivity measurements comparing the new OMT/horn with a quasi-optical wire grid beam splitter. Moreover, the radar performance assessment validates the OMT as a suitable compact substitute of the wire grid for the JPL's short-range 680-GHz imaging radar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a compact system-on-package-based front-end solution for 60-GHz-band wireless communication/sensor applications that consists of fully integrated three-dimensional (3-D) cavity filters/duplexers and antenna. The presented concept is applied to the design, fabrication, and testing of V-band (receiver (Rx): 59–61.5 GHz, transmitter (Tx): 61.5–64 GHz) transceiver front-end module using multilayer low-temperature co-fired ceramic technology. Vertically stacked 3-D low-loss cavity bandpass filters are developed for Rx and Tx channels to realize a fully integrated compact duplexer. Each filter exhibits excellent performance (Rx: IL < 2.37 dB, 3-dB bandwidth (BW) ∼ 3.5%, Tx: IL < 2.39 dB, 3-dB BW ∼ 3.33%). The fabrication tolerances contributing to the resonant frequency experimental downshift were investigated and taken into account in the simulations of the rest devices. The developed cavity filters are utilized to realize the compact duplexers by using microstrip T-junctions. This integrated duplexer shows Rx/Tx BW of 4.20% and 2.66% and insertion loss of 2.22 and 2.48 dB, respectively. The different experimental results of the duplexer compared to the individual filters above are attributed to the fabrication tolerance, especially on microstrip T-junctions. The measured channel-to-channel isolation is better than 35.2 dB across the Rx band (56–58.4 GHz) and better than 38.4 dB across the Tx band (59.3–60.9 GHz). The reported fully integrated Rx and Tx filters and the dual-polarized cross-shaped patch antenna functions demonstrate a novel 3-D deployment of embedded components equipped with an air cavity on the top. The excellent overall performance of the full integrated module is verified through the 10-dB BW of 2.4 GHz (∼ 4.18%) at 57.45 and 2.3 GHz (∼ 3.84%) at 59.85 GHz and the measured isolation better than 49 dB across the Rx band and better than 51.9 dB across the Tx band. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a new low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) U-shaped resonator. The advantages of LTCC technology are employed to design this three-dimensional (3-D) λg⁄2 resonator. The latter is modeled and optimized by 3-D electromagnetic simulations and is validated by experimental results. In order to validate the coupling between these resonators, a two-pole filter, functioning around 39 GHz, has then been designed and realized with success. Finally, two very compact three-pole bandpass filters have been conceived for a Q-band duplexer design. On the one hand, a filter has been designed around 38 GHz and presents a transmission zero in the upper band. On the other hand, an other filter functioning at 40.7 GHz is presented with a transmission zero in the lower band. Experimental results are in good agreement with theoretical ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a novel electronically tunable active duplexer suitable for reconfigurable wireless transceiver applications is presented. The theory, design, and measured results of a varactor tunable active duplexer are summarized. The prototype active duplexer presented in this paper provides an electronically adjustable isolation of 20–50 dB between isolated ports and a gain of approximately 5 dB between coupled ports in the tunable range from 1.62 to 1.82 GHz in both transmit and receive modes of operations. The measured noise figure of the duplexer varied from 1.77 to 2.44 dB in the tuning range. The measured output powers at the 1-dB gain compression point and third-order intercept point, varied from 8.5 to 9.5 dBm and 20 to 29.5 dBm, respectively, in the tuning range. The design guidelines, measured S-parameters, and results of yield analysis of the duplexer are presented. The proposed duplexer can be implemented as a monolithic microwave integrated circuit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]