This paper aims to develop an original circuit theory of inductorless NGD topology. The considered passive cell comprised of resistor and capacitor elements without inductor operates as a bandpass (BP) NGD function. The specifications of NGD functions are defined. Generally, the BP NGD fully lumped circuits available in the literature operate with resonant RLC-network. In the introduced research work, a lumped circuit was first time identified to exhibit the BP behavior without the presence of inductive component. The inductorless BP NGD topology is inspired from the combination of low-pass (LP) and high-pass (HP) NGD passive cells. Therefore, an original LP-HP NGD composite topology is obtained. The identified BP NGD topology is constituted only by passive RC-networks. Then, theoretical development of BP NGD analysis is explored. The inductorless circuit theory starts with the identification of BP NGD canonical form. Then, the expressions of NGD value, center frequency and attenuation in function of RC-network parameters are established. The synthesis equations allowing to determine the resistor and capacitor elements are derived. Proofs-of-concept are designed and prototypes are fabricated to verify the effectiveness of the developed LP-HP NGD composite theory. To validate the developed original circuit theory, two prototypes of RC-network based LP-HP NGD composite were designed, fabricated, simulated and tested. The two prototypes were synthesized with respect to two different NGD center frequencies 13.5 MHz and 22 MHz. As expected, the calculated, simulated and measurement results are in very good agreement with NGD value of about some negative nanoseconds. In the future, the characterized inductorless topology enable to overcome the traditional limitations of RLC-network based BP NGD circuits because of inductance self-effect limitation. INDEX TERMS Bandpass (BP) negative group delay (NGD), Low-pass/high-pass (LP-HP) NGD composite, Circuit theory, Inductorless passive topology.

This paper introduces an original study of low-pass (LP) negative group delay (NGD) circuit. The family of the proposed passive network cross-topology was rarely investigated in the literature. It acts as a tri-port passive circuit presenting a cross-shaped topology. The present study of tri-port passive circuit is originally based on S-matrix modelling. The identification method of LP-NGD function type is established. The considered passive tri-port topology is innovatively constituted by a resistorless LC-passive network. Thanks to the impedance 3-D matrix modelling, the cross-circuit S-parameters are analytically expressed. Then, the NGD analysis at very low-frequencies is presented. The LP-NGD behavior existence condition of the cross-circuit in function of the L and C components is established. The relevance of the tri-port NGD circuit theory is verified by a proof-of-concept of resistorless cross-circuit. Analytical modelling, simulation, and experimentation confirmed the LP-NGD design feasibility with NGD value of about −2 ns and 6.67 MHz cut-off frequency.

The miniaturization and application development are the expected challenges on the today engineering design research on bandpass (BP) type negative group delay (NGD) circuit. To overcome this technical limit, an innovative contribution on integrated circuit (IC) design method of BP-NGD application to design constant phase shifter (PS) in 130-nm BiCMOS technology is developed in the present paper. The BP-NGD PS microwave passive IC is topologically consisted of cascade of CLC-and RLC-resonant networks. After the S-matrix modelling, the synthesis design equations enabling to calculate each lumped component values constituting the BP-NGD PS BiCMOS are established. The design equations are expressed knowing the targeted specifications as phase shift and operating frequency. The BiCMOS design methodology including the key steps as design rule checking (DRC), layout versus schematic (LVS) and post-layout simulation (PLS) is described. The miniaturized BP-NGD PS design feasibility is verified with schematic and layout simulations with IC CMOS standard commercial software tool. A proof-of-concept (POC) of 130-nm BiCMOS BP-NGD PS operating at the center frequency f0=1.9 GHz and bandwidth ∆f=0.1 GHz is designed and simulated. After DRC, the chip layout of miniaturized BP-NGD PS POC presents 0.407 mm² size. The BP-NGD PS POC exhibits constant phase shift notable value of about φ0=-90°+/-0.4° under S21(f0)=-6+/-1 dB transmission coefficient with good flatness and reflection coefficients (S21(f0) and S21(f0)) widely better than -10 dB. The design robustness is confirmed by 1000-trial Monte Carlo uncertainty analyses with PLS results. Because of the potential integration in wireless sensor networks (WSNs), the BP-NGD PS under study is a promising candidate for the improvement of the future 5G and 6G transceiver design.

This paper introduces a model and design of an innovative bandpass (BP) negative group delay (NGD) distributed circuit. The passive circuit topology under study is constituted by fully distributed elements without lumped components. The NGD passive structure is implemented as a ladder shape topology composed of distributed transmission line (TL) elements. The S-matrix model is established from TL-based equivalent Z-matrix operations with respect to the ladder geometry. As a proof of concept, a two-cell ladder prototype is designed in microstrip technology, which is simulated, fabricated, and tested. The calculated and simulated measurements are in very good agreement with the validation of BP NGD behaviour. NGD value is better than −3 ns with centre frequency between 3.56 and 3.68 GHz over more than 30 MHz NGD bandwidth being observed. The circuit operates under insertion loss better than 5 dB and reflection loss better than 8 dB. This innovative BP NGD passive circuit can be useful in the RF and microwave engineering area, for example, to reduce the signal propagation delay in the upcoming and 5G telecommunication systems.

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