Design Miniaturized Millimeter-Wave Butterworth Bandpass Filters in 0.13-µm BiCMOS Technology for 5G Wireless Applications

Abstract

In this paper, a design methodology for a miniaturized millimeter-wave bandpass filter (BPF) on-chip is presented. The introduced method is based on quasi-lumped elements, which consist of a resonator with a meander transmission line and metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitors. In this technique, the conventional large-size coil is replaced by a compact transmission line and MIM capacitor, where the filter is equivalent to the large coil and the associated capacitors. Four implementations of simplified LC-equivalent circuit layouts are carried out in order to fully explain the introduced technique. The four introduced designs are first-order Butterworth BPF, second-order Butterworth BPF, third-order Butterworth BPF, and fourth-order Butterworth BPF. All these four designs are simulated in 0.13-µm BiCMOS technology. Each of the first design BPF and the second BPF has one meander line and MIM capacitors (one capacitor in first design and two capacitors in second design). The simulation results for the first design BPF show an insertion loss of 2.3 dB at the frequency center of 54.2 GHz of this filter, and the return loss range from 10 dB to 28.3 dB in the band of frequencies of 48.9 to 58.9 GHz. The chip size of the first design BPF is 0.055 × 0.074 mm2. The simulation results for the second design BPF show an insertion loss of 2.37 dB at the frequency center of 47.5 GHz of this filter, and the return loss range from 10 dB to 23 dB in the band of frequencies of 44 to 53 GHz. The chip size of the second design BPF is 0.092 × 0.074 mm2. The third design BPF and the fourth design BPF include two meander lines and MIM capacitors (three capacitors in third design and four capacitors in fourth design), which has a very low insertion loss of 1.19 dB at the frequency center of 49 GHz. The return loss ranges from 10 dB to 45.3 dB at frequencies 41 GHz to 59 GHz. The chip size of the third design BPF is 0.098 × 0.19 mm2. The simulated results for the fourth-design BPF show an insertion loss of 1.25 dB at the center frequency of 50 GHz, and the return loss ranges from 10 dB to 50 dB at frequencies from 43 GHz to 58 GHz. The chip size of the fourth BPF is 0.098 × 0.25 mm2. The bandwidth range for each of the four designs is 48.2 GHz to 59.3 GHz for the first BPF, 44 GHz to 53 GHz for the second BPF, 35 GHz to 65 GHz for the third BPF, and 38.5 GHz to 64 GHz for the fourth BPF.