EP0271505B1 - Power divider/combiner circuit - Google Patents

Power divider/combiner circuit Download PDF

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Publication number
EP0271505B1
EP0271505B1 EP87902973A EP87902973A EP0271505B1 EP 0271505 B1 EP0271505 B1 EP 0271505B1 EP 87902973 A EP87902973 A EP 87902973A EP 87902973 A EP87902973 A EP 87902973A EP 0271505 B1 EP0271505 B1 EP 0271505B1
Authority
EP
European Patent Office
Prior art keywords
fingers
power divider
strip
tapered
combiner circuit
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Expired - Lifetime
Application number
EP87902973A
Other languages
German (de)
English (en)
French (fr)
Other versions
EP0271505A1 (en
Inventor
James M. Schellenberg
Wing Yau
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Raytheon Co
Original Assignee
Hughes Aircraft Co
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Hughes Aircraft Co filed Critical Hughes Aircraft Co
Publication of EP0271505A1 publication Critical patent/EP0271505A1/en
Application granted granted Critical
Publication of EP0271505B1 publication Critical patent/EP0271505B1/en
Anticipated expiration legal-status Critical
Expired - Lifetime legal-status Critical Current

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Classifications

    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H01—ELECTRIC ELEMENTS
    • H01P—WAVEGUIDES; RESONATORS, LINES, OR OTHER DEVICES OF THE WAVEGUIDE TYPE
    • H01P5/00—Coupling devices of the waveguide type
    • H01P5/12—Coupling devices having more than two ports
    • H01P5/16—Conjugate devices, i.e. devices having at least one port decoupled from one other port
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H01—ELECTRIC ELEMENTS
    • H01P—WAVEGUIDES; RESONATORS, LINES, OR OTHER DEVICES OF THE WAVEGUIDE TYPE
    • H01P5/00—Coupling devices of the waveguide type
    • H01P5/12—Coupling devices having more than two ports

Definitions

  • This invention relates to microwave and millimeter wave integrated circuits and more particularly to a planar power divider/combiner circuit which may be used to divide an RF signal into a plurality of signals or combine a plurality of RF signal sources into a single signal.
  • RF signal includes both microwave and millimeter wave signals.
  • Power divider circuits have been developed to divide RF signals into a number of signals to feed multi-element antennas.
  • power combiner circuits were developed to combine the output of a number of solid state amplifiers, chip transitors or oscillators.
  • Several different circuit geometries have evolved to accomplish this power dividing or combining such as: The circular-geometry Wilkinson power divider disclosed in G. J. Wilkinson, "An-N Way Hybrid Power Divider," IRE Trans. on Microwave Theory and Tech. , MTT-8 No.1, 116-19 (Jan 1960); the fork power divider disclosed in an article by A. Saleh entitled "Planar, Electrically Symetric N-Way hybrid Power Dividers/Combiners," IEEE Trans.
  • a power divider/combiner circuit comprises a flat tapered strip of electrically conductive material with a plurality of slots of constant width extending from the wide end of the tapered strip toward the narrow end of tapered the strip such that the strip defines a plurality of tapered fingers.
  • the narrow end of the tapered strip forms one port, either an input or an output port, and the respective tips of the fingers form a plurality of ports which can be either input ports or output ports.
  • Isolation resistors may connect adjacent fingers at quarter wavelength distances along the fingers.
  • the tapered strip is mounted on a dielectric substrate.
  • An input signal from an RF signal source may be fed into the single port at the narrow end of the tapered strip,
  • the input signal will be divided into a plurality of RF signals of equi-amplitude and equal phase at the finger ports.
  • these signals will combine into a single RF signal at the single port at the narrow end of the tapered strip.
  • a power divider/combiner circuit 10 may include a tapered strip of electrically conductive material 1 with a narrow end 2 and a wide end 3.
  • the tapered strip 1 is preferably made of a metal such as gold, but may be made of any other good electrically conductive material.
  • the strip may be about 2-3 skin depths thick for the lower frequency of the desired bandwidth of operation.
  • the tapered strip 1 provides a tapered transmission line in which the contour of the taper is selected to match the impedance at the narrow end 2 of the tapered strip to the impedance at the wide end 3 of the tapered strip over the desired bandwidth of operation.
  • the contour and lengths of the taper determine the maximum inband reflection coefficient and the lower cut off frequency, respectively.
  • a Dolph-Tchebycheff taper While many taper geometries are available, such as an exponential taper or a hyperbolic taper, a Dolph-Tchebycheff taper has been found to afford optimum performance because it provides a minimum length for the transmission line for a specified maximum magnitude reflection coefficient in the passband.
  • the design equations for the Dolph-Tchebycheff taper may be found in an article authored by R. W. Klopfenstein entitled “A Transmission Line Taper of Improved Design," 44 Proc. IRE 31-35 (Jan. 1956), which is incorporated herein by reference.
  • the tapered strip 1 has a plurality of slots 4 therein extending from the wide end 3 of the strip toward the narrow end 2 of the strip which define a plurality of conductor fingers 5.
  • the narrow end 2 of the tapered strip 1 thus defines a single port 2 which can be either an input port or an output port depending on whether the circuit is used as a power divider or combiner, respectively.
  • the tips of the conductor fingers 5 at the wide end 2 of the strip 1 define N ports 6, where N is an integer greater than 1, which can be either output ports or input ports depending on whether the circuit is used as a power combiner or divider, respectively.
  • N is an integer greater than 1
  • 5 ports are shown FIGS 1a and 1b, any number of ports are possible.
  • the slot width i.e. the spacing between the adjacent fingers 5, should be kept small to enhance coupling between adjacent fingers and thus ensure that the structure retains the characteristics of a DolphTchebycheff tapered transmission line. A slot width of about 38 ⁇ m (1.5 mil) has been typically used.
  • the fingers 5 function as strip line conductors.
  • Several methods are available for determining the appropriate widths (even mode impedance) and gap spacings for strip line conductors, such as disclosed in J. I. Smith, "The Even and Odd Mode Capacitance Parameters for Coupled Lines in Suspended Substrate.” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech ., Vol. MTT-19, pp. 424-31 (May 1971) or T, Itoh & A. S. Herbert, "A Generalised Spectrum Domain Analysis for Coupled Suspended Microstriplines with Tuning Septums," IEEE Trans Microwave Theory Tech, Vol, MTT-26, pp, 820-27, (Oct. 1978), which are incorporated herein by reference.
  • Isolation resistors 7 connect adjacent conductor fingers 5.
  • the resistors 7 absorb signals that are reflected back into the power divider/combiner circuit, the odd mode propagation.
  • These resistors may be chip resistors 7 disposed on top of the strip as illustrated in FIG. 1, or thick or thin film resistors 7′ located between the fingers 5 in the slots 4 on the substrate 8, as illustrated in FIG. 2.
  • the number of isolation resistors 7 disposed along each pair of adjacent fingers 5 should preferably be one less than the total number of finger ports in the circuit to effectively absorb the propagation of odd modes.
  • the number of isolation resistors 7 disposed along each pair of adjacent fingers 5 should preferably be one less than the total number of finger ports in the circuit to effectively absorb the propagation of odd modes.
  • resistors along each pair of adjacent fingers are 4 resistors along each pair of adjacent fingers.
  • additional or fewer resistors also may be employed.
  • the tapered strip 1 may be adhesively mounted onto a dielectric substrate 8 which is generally a thin flat plate of dielectric material.
  • the substrate for example, may be made of sapphire, berryllium oxide, quartz, or alumina.
  • the adhesive material 9 may be chrome or ti-tungsten or any other good conductive adhesive material.
  • the dielectric substrate may be grounded at the bottom surface 11 of the substrate 8.
  • FIG. 3 illustrates a power divider/combiner circuit according to a further embodiment of the present invention.
  • the circuit of FIG. 3 includes an RF signal source 30 which may be an oscillator or amplifier, for example.
  • the signal from the source 30 is fed into the single port 2a of a power divider/combiner circuit 31.
  • This single RF signal is divided into a plurality of RF signals at the finger ports 6a.
  • These signals are amplified by respective amplifiers 32, which may be hybrid amplifiers, pre-matched chips, microwave monolithic integrated circuit chips, transitor chips, for example, and fed into respective finger ports 6b of power divider/combiner circuit 33 according to the invention which, in turn, combines these N amplified RF signals into a single RF signal at port 2b.
  • the resultant output signal is the station of the various output signals from the amplifiers 32.

Landscapes

  • Waveguides (AREA)
  • Microwave Amplifiers (AREA)
  • Oscillators With Electromechanical Resonators (AREA)
  • Transmitters (AREA)
  • Measurement And Recording Of Electrical Phenomena And Electrical Characteristics Of The Living Body (AREA)
  • Amplifiers (AREA)
EP87902973A 1986-05-28 1987-03-30 Power divider/combiner circuit Expired - Lifetime EP0271505B1 (en)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US86821186A 1986-05-28 1986-05-28
US868211 1986-05-28

Publications (2)

Publication Number Publication Date
EP0271505A1 EP0271505A1 (en) 1988-06-22
EP0271505B1 true EP0271505B1 (en) 1992-05-20

Family

ID=25351241

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
EP87902973A Expired - Lifetime EP0271505B1 (en) 1986-05-28 1987-03-30 Power divider/combiner circuit

Country Status (8)

Country Link
EP (1) EP0271505B1 (no)
JP (1) JPS63503429A (no)
KR (1) KR900008628B1 (no)
AU (1) AU581817B2 (no)
DE (1) DE3779269D1 (no)
DK (1) DK35988D0 (no)
NO (1) NO171580C (no)
WO (1) WO1987007438A1 (no)

Families Citing this family (1)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
GB2222488A (en) * 1988-08-31 1990-03-07 Philips Electronic Associated Broad bandwidth planar power combiner/divider device

Family Cites Families (8)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
FR1528743A (fr) * 1967-04-25 1968-06-14 Répartiteur d'énergie à haute fréquence
GB1330408A (en) * 1971-04-26 1973-09-19 Mullard Ltd Microwave power-divider
US3886498A (en) * 1974-07-22 1975-05-27 Us Navy Wideband, matched three port power divider
JPS5349930A (en) * 1976-10-18 1978-05-06 Nec Corp Ultra-high frequency power distribution/composition circuit
US4129839A (en) * 1977-03-09 1978-12-12 Raytheon Company Radio frequency energy combiner or divider
JPS5610701A (en) * 1979-07-09 1981-02-03 Denki Kogyo Kk Impedance matching method of strip line
JPS58119203A (ja) * 1982-01-08 1983-07-15 Nippon Telegr & Teleph Corp <Ntt> 位相補償形分布結合電力分配器
JPS5930327A (ja) * 1982-08-13 1984-02-17 Hitachi Ltd 半導体集積回路

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
EP0271505A1 (en) 1988-06-22
JPH0434322B2 (no) 1992-06-05
NO880153L (no) 1988-01-14
KR900008628B1 (ko) 1990-11-26
NO171580B (no) 1992-12-21
KR880701472A (ko) 1988-07-27
AU7357287A (en) 1987-12-22
NO171580C (no) 1993-03-31
WO1987007438A1 (en) 1987-12-03
DE3779269D1 (de) 1992-06-25
DK35988A (da) 1988-01-26
AU581817B2 (en) 1989-03-02
JPS63503429A (ja) 1988-12-08
NO880153D0 (no) 1988-01-14
DK35988D0 (da) 1988-01-26

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