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UNIT 4

Microstrip lines- Characteristic impedance-


Losses in microstrip lines Q-factor of
microstrip line.

Parallel strip lines- distributed parameters-


characteristic impedance

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Planar Transmission line

various planar transmission line structures are


shown here:

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Striplines and Microstrip Lines
the strip line was developed from the square
coaxial

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Striplines
since the stripline has only 1 dielectric, it supports
TEM wave, however, it is difficult to integrate with
other discrete elements and excitations
microstrip line is one of the most popular types of
planar transmission line, it can be fabricated by
photolithographic techniques and is easily integrated
with other circuit elements

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Striplines and Microstrip Lines

Since the stripline has only 1 dielectric, it supports


TEM wave, however, it is difficult to integrate with
other discrete elements and excitations.
Microstrip line is one of the most popular types of
planar transmission line, it can be fabricated by
photolithographic techniques and is easily integrated
with other circuit elements.

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Striplines and Microstrip Lines

the following diagrams depicts the evolution


of microstrip transmission line

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Striplines and Microstrip Lines
a microstrip line suspended in air can support TEM
wave
a microstrip line printed on a grounded slab does not
support TEM wave! Why?
the exact fields constitute a hybrid TM-TE wave
when the dielectric slab become very thin
(electrically), most of the electric fields are trapped
under the microstrip line and the fields are
essentially the same as those of the static case, the
fields are quasi-static.

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Microstrip TL
Microstrip transmission lines consist of a conductive
strip of width "W" and thickness "t" and a wider ground
plane, separated by a dielectric layer (the "substrate") of
thickness "H" as shown in the figure below.

Microstrip is by far the most popular microwave transmission


line, especially for microwave integrated circuits and MMICs.

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Microstrip line Structure

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strip - Transmission line parameters

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Microstrip TL- Pros and Cons
The major advantage of microstrip over stripline is that all active
components can be mounted on top of the board.

The disadvantages are that when high isolation is required such as in


a filter or switch, some external shielding may have to be
considered.

Given the chance, microstrip circuits can radiate, causing


unintended circuit response.

A minor issue with microstrip is that it is dispersive, meaning that


signals of different frequencies travel at slightly different speeds.

Microstrip does not support a TEM mode, because of its filling


factor.
For coupled lines, the even and odd modes will not have the same
phase velocity. This property is what causes the asymmetric
frequency of microstrip bandpass filters, for example.
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strip - Transmission line parameters
Analytical derivation of the characteristic properties of the
line is cumbersome.
Only empirical formulas necessary for calculating the
phase velocity, impedance and losses of the line.
Due to the open structure of the microstrip line, the EM
field is not confined to the dielectric, but is partly in the
surrounding air as shown in Figure.

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strip - Transmission line parameters
Provided the frequency is not too high, the microstrip line
will propagate a wave that, for all practical purposes, is a
TEM wave.
Because of the fringing, the effective relative permittivity
eff is less than the relative permittivity r of the substrate.

If W is the line width and H is the substrate thickness, an


approximate value of eff or e is given by,

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Design Formulas of Microstrip Lines
Because part of the fields from the microstrip conductor exist in air, the
effective dielectric constant " eff" is somewhat less than the substrate's
dielectric constant (also known as the relative permittivity).

the effective dielectric constant of a microstrip


line is given by

eff
d=H
or

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Striplines and Microstrip Lines

one can define an effective dielectric constant so


that the phase velocity and the propagation constant
can be defined as

the effective dielectric constant is bounded by


, it also depends on the slab thickness H
and conductor width, W

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Design Formulas of Microstrip Lines
Because part of the fields from the microstrip conductor exist in air, the
effective dielectric constant " eff" is somewhat less than the substrate's
dielectric constant (also known as the relative permittivity).

the effective dielectric constant of a microstrip


line is given by

eff
d=H
or

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Filling Factor (FF)
Filling factor is a measure of the percentage of the
electric fields in a transmission line that cut
through the substrate.
In non-TEM transmission lines such as a microstrip, the
electric fields cut through two (or sometimes more)
dielectric materials.

For now, we will only consider the case of two materials,


and one of them is air ( r=1).

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FF
If FF is the percentage of fields in the material, then 1-FF is
the percentage of fields in air.

eff = r . FF + [1. (1-FF)]


Solving for FF,

FF=( eff -1)/( r -1)

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Effective dielectric constant
Filling factor is a measure of the percentage of the
electric fields in a transmission line that cut
through the substrate.
If FF is the percentage of fields in the material, then 1-FF is
the percentage of fields in air.

eff = r . FF + [1. (1-FF)]


Solving for FF,

FF=( eff -1)/( r -1)


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Design Formulas of Microstrip Lines

the characteristic impedance is given by the


following approximate formulas
For W/H 1 d=H

For W/H 1

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Design Formulas of Microstrip Lines

for a given characteristic impedance and


dielectric constant , the W/d ratio can be
found as

for W/d< 2

Where,

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Design Formulas of Microstrip Lines

for W/d > 2

Where

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strip - Transmission line parameters
More accurate expressions
Characteristic Impedance (Zo) [ Error

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Losses in Microstrip lines

For further reading on losses in Microstrips please refer:


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Design Formulas of Microstrip Lines: Losses

for a homogeneous medium with a complex


dielectric constant, the propagation constant is
written in terms of dielectric loss

note that the loss tangent is usually very small

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Note that where x is small
[ Taylors expansion simplification]

therefore, we have

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Dielectric Loss

Note that
for small loss, the phase constant is unchanged
when compared to the lossless case
the attenuation constant due to dielectric loss is
therefore given by

Np/m (TE or TM)

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Dielectric Loss

For TEM wave , therefore

Np/m (TEM)

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What is Loss tangent, tan ?
Defined as
The total
effective
conductivity

Which is seen to be the ratio of the real to the imaginary part of the
total displacement current.

Microwave materials are usually characterized by specifying the real


permittivity, = o r and loss tangent at a certain frequency.

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Slide 27 is for reference only
Conductor Loss

the attenuation due to conductor loss is given by

Np/m
where

is called the surface resistance of the conductor

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The line is dispersive.

With increasing frequency, the effective


dielectric constant gradually climbs towards that
of the substrate, so that the phase velocity
gradually decreases.
This is true even with a non-dispersive substrate
material (the substrate dielectric constant will
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usually fall with increasing frequency).
Design Formulas of Microstrip Lines

note that for most microstrip substrate, the


dielectric loss is much more significant than
the conductor loss

at very high frequency, conductor loss


becomes significant

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An Approximate Electrostatic Solution for
Microstrip Lines

two side walls are sufficiently far away that the


quasi-static field around the microstrip would not
be disturbed (a >> d)

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Stripline
y
w
b
x
z
Approximate Electrostatic Solution:
y

b/2

-a/2 0 a/2

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Microstrip
y
w
d
-a/2 a/2 x

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Example Microstrip-line

Note: 1 mils = 25.4 micron


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Example Microstrip-line

Solution:

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Quality Factor, Q of Microstrip lines
Many microwave ICs require very high quality resonant circuits.

The Q factor of a microstrip line is very high, but it is limited by the


radiation losses of the substrates and with low dielectric constant.

Since Qc is related to the conductor attenuation constant by

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Q of Microstrip lines

Where is the conductivity of the dielectric substrate board in S/m.


For Copper strip, = 5.8 x 107 S/m and QC becomes

For 25-mil alumina at 10 GHz, the maximum QC achievable from


wide microstrip lines is 954.

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Q of Microstrip lines
Similarly, a quality factor Qd is related to the dielectric attenuation
constant:

This yields,

Where o is the free space wavelength in cm.

Note that the Qd for the dielectric attenuation constant of a microstrip line is
approximately the reciprocal of the dielectric
48 loss tangent and is relatively constant with
frequency.
Parallel Strip lines
A parallel strip line consists of two perfectly parallel strips separated
by a perfect dielectric slab of uniform thickness as shown.

The plate width is w, the separation distance is d, and the relative


dielectric constant of the slab is r

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Parallel Strip lines

The equation for the inductance along the two conducting strips can be
written as,

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Parallel Strip lines

Where symbol carry the usual meanings.

The Shunt conductance of the strip line is,

(S/m)
Where d is the conductivity of the dielectric slab
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Parallel Strip lines

The characteristic impedance of the lossless parallel


strip line is

Attenuation constants for the conductor and dielectric


losses

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Example

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Solution
We know that the characteristic impedance of lossless
parallel strip line is

From this equation, the width of the strip is,

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Solution
We know that the characteristic impedance of lossless
parallel strip line is

b) The strip-line capacitance is,

c) The strip-line capacitance is,

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Solution
d) The phase velocity is,

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End of UNIT 4 discussions

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