An elliptical function low-pass filter (LPF) with ultra wide stopband and sharp cutoff frequency is proposed. This filter is composed of symmetrical cascaded modified hairpin resonators and U-shaped resonators. The transition band is from 1 to 1.21 GHz with 23 and 220 dB, respectively. For this filter, the return loss is better than 17 dB in 80% of passband width, where the insertion loss is less than 0.3 dB. The band-stop rejection is greater than 20 dB from 1.21 to 26.35 GHz and 40 dB from 1.35 to 12.5 GHz. To validate the design and analysis, the proposed LPF has been designed and fabricated on a 20 mil thick RO4003 substrate with a relative dielectric constant 3.38 and loss tangent of 0.0021. The filter is evaluated by experiment and simulation with a good agreement. V C 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE 24:314-321, 2014.