Design and fabrication of MEMS lowpass filter exploiting space mapping algorithm

Abstract

A high‐performance microstrip lowpass filter with coplanar waveguide as the ports is proposed and analyzed. By cascading asymmetric hairpin resonators, a compact elliptic function low‐pass filter with wide stop band was realized. The filter was optimized using aggressive space mapping algorithm, and finally a filter with a cut‐off frequency of 11.8 GHz was obtained. Stop bandwidth with attenuation level better than −27 dB extends from 15.6 to 36 GHz. Also, the maximum insertion loss in the passband is 0.9 dB and the return loss is better than −22 dB. The filter is manufactured on the silicon wafer using micro‐electromechanical systems process, and the measured results in good agreement with the simulation results.