High Frequency Design From December 2007 High Frequency Electronics

Copyright © 2007 Summit Technical Media, LLC

COMBINERS & COUPLERS

Power Combiners,
Impedance Transformers
and Directional Couplers
By Andrei Grebennikov
Infineon/DICE

M
any RF applica- Transmission-Line Transformers
This is the first of a multi- tions require and Combiners
part article that provides a power combiners The transmission-line transformers and
textbook-style review of an or dividers, impedance combiners can provide very wide operating
important group of RF transformers and direc- bandwidths and operate up to frequencies of 3
circuits used in applications tional couplers. In the GHz and higher [1, 2]. They are widely used in
such as power amplifiers, case of combiners, it is matching networks for antennas and power
antenna systems and critical, particularly at amplifiers in the HF and VHF bands, in mixer
measurement systems higher frequencies, that circuits, and their low losses make them espe-
the correct types are used cially useful in high power circuits [3, 4].
to achieve the desired power performance Typical structures for transmission-line trans-
when combing individual active devices to formers consist of parallel wires, coaxial
achieve higher power. cables or bifilar twisted wire pairs. In the lat-
The methods for configuration of the com- ter case, the characteristic impedance can eas-
biners or dividers differ, depending on the ily be determined by the wire diameter, the
operating frequency, frequency bandwidth, insulation thickness, and, to some extent, the
output power, and size requirements. Coaxial twisting pitch [5, 6]. For coaxial cable trans-
cable combiners with ferrite cores are often formers with correctly chosen characteristic
used to combine the output powers of power impedance, the theoretical high frequency
amplifiers intended for wideband applica- bandwidth limit is reached when the cable
tions. The device output impedance is usually length comes in order of a half wavelength,
low at high power levels; so, to match this with the overall achievable bandwidth being
impedance with a standard 50-ohm load, coax- about a decade. By introducing the low-loss
ial-line transformers with specified high permeability ferrites alongside a good
impedance transformation are used. For nar- quality semi-rigid coaxial or symmetrical strip
row-band applications, the N-way Wilkinson cable, the low frequency limit can be signifi-
combiners are widely used due to their simple cantly improved providing bandwidths of sev-
practical realization. For microwaves, the size eral or more decades.
of combiners should be very small and, there- The concept of a broadband impedance
fore, the hybrid microstrip combiners (includ- transformer consisting of a pair of intercon-
ing different types of the microwaves hybrids nected transmission lines was first disclosed
and directional couplers) are commonly used and described by Guanella [7, 8]. Figure 1(a)
to combine output powers of power amplifiers shows a Guanella transformer system with
or oscillators. In this paper, a variety of differ- transmission line character achieved by an
ent combiners, impedance transformers and arrangement comprising one pair of cylindri-
directional couplers for application in RF and cal coils that are wound in the same sense and
microwave transmitters is given with descrip- are spaced a certain distance apart by an
tions of their schematics and operational prin- intervening dielectric. In this case, one cylin-
ciples. drical coil is located inside the insulating

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Figure 1 · Schematic configura-

tions of Guanella 1:1 and 4:1 trans-
formers.

cylinder and the other coil is located Figure 2 · Schematic configurations of a coaxial cable transformer.
on the outside of this cylinder. For the
currents flowing through both wind-
ings in opposite directions, the corre- in the two times higher impedance currents—flowing in both transmis-
sponding flux in the coil axis is negli- 2Z0 at the input and two times lower sion line inner and outer conductors
gibly small. However, for the currents impedance Z0/2 at the output. By in phase, and in the same direction—
flowing in the same direction through grounding terminal 4, such a 4:1 are suppressed, and the load may be
both coils (common-mode), the latter impedance transformer provides balanced and floating above ground
may be assumed to be connected in impedance matching of the balanced or balanced with a center tap ground-
parallel, and a coil pair represents a source to the unbalanced load. In this ed load, thus operating as a balun [9,
considerable inductance for such cur- case, when terminal 2 is grounded, it 10]. If the characteristic impedance of
rents and acts like a choke coil. With performs as a 4:1 unun (unbalanced- the transmission line is equal to the
terminal 4 being grounded, such a 1:1 to-unbalanced transformer). With a terminating impedances, the trans-
transformer provides matching of the series-parallel connection of n coil mission is inherently broadband. If
balanced source to unbalanced load pairs, each having the characteristic not, there will be a dip in the
and is called a balun (balanced-to- impedance Z0, the input impedance is response at the frequency at which
unbalanced transformer). In this equal to nZ0 and the output the transmission-line is a quarter-
case, if terminal 2 is grounded, it rep- impedance is equal to Z0/n. Since wavelength long.
resents simply a delay line. In a par- Guanella adds voltages that have A coaxial cable transformer with
ticular case, when terminals 2 and 3 equal delays through the transmis- the physical configuration and equiv-
are grounded, the transformer per- sion lines, such a technique results in alent circuit representation shown in
forms as a phase inverter. A series- the so called equal-delay transmis- Figures 2(a) and 2(b), respectively,
parallel connection of a plurality of sion-line transformers. consists of the coaxial line arranged
these coil pairs can produce a match The simplest transmission-line is inside the ferrite core or wound
between unequal source and load a quarter-wave transmission line around the ferrite core. Due to its
resistances. whose characteristic impedance is practical configuration, the coaxial
Figure 1(b) shows a 4:1 chosen to give the correct impedance cable transformer takes a position
impedance (2:1 voltage) transmis- transformation. However, this trans- between the lumped and distributed
sion-line transformer where the two former provides a narrow-band per- systems. Therefore, at lower frequen-
pairs of cylindrical transmission line formance valid only around frequen- cies its equivalent circuit represents
coils are connected in series at the cies for which the transmission line is a conventional polarity reversing
input and in parallel at the output. odd multiples of a quarter wave- low-frequency transformer shown in
For the characteristic impedance Z0 length. If a ferrite sleeve is added to Figure 2(c), while at higher frequency
of each transmission line, this results the transmission line, common-mode it is a transmission line with the

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Figure 3 · Low frequency models of a 1:1 coaxial

cable transformer.
Figure 4 · Schematic configurations of the Ruthroff 1:4
impedance transformer.
characteristic impedance Z0 shown in Figure 2(d). The
advantage of such a transformer is that the parasitic
interturn capacitance determines its characteristic
⎡ ⎛ 2l ⎞ ⎤
impedance, whereas in the conventional wire-wound Lm = 2l ⎢ ln ⎜ ⎟ − 1⎥ nH (2)
⎣ ⎝ r ⎠ ⎦
transformer with discrete windings this parasitic capaci-
tance has a negative effect on the transformer frequency
response performance. where l is the length of the coaxial cable in cm and r is the
When RS = RL = Z0, the transmission line can be con- radius of the outer surface of the outer conductor in cm
sidered a transformer with a 1:1 impedance transforma- [4].
tion. To avoid any resonant phenomena, especially for The use of high permeability core materials results in
complex loads, which can contribute to the significant shorter transmission lines. If a toroid is used for the core,
output power variations, as a general rule, the length l of the magnetizing inductance Lm is obtained by
the transmission line is kept to no more than one-eighth
of wavelength λmin, or Ae
Lm = 4 πn2µ nH (3)
Le
λ min
l≤ (1)
8 where n is the number of turns, µ is the core permeabili-
ty, Ae is the effective cross-sectional area of the core in
where λmin is the minimum wavelength in the transmis- cm2, and Le is the average magnetic path length in cm
sion line corresponding to the highest operating frequen- [11].
cy fmax. Considering the transformer equivalent circuit shown
The low-frequency bandwidth limit of a coaxial cable in Fig. 2(a), the ratio between the power delivered to the
transformer is determined by the effect of the magnetiz- load PL and power available at the source Ps = Vs2/8Rs
ing inductance Lm of the outer surface of the outer con- when RS = RL can be obtained from
ductor according to the equivalent low-frequency trans-
former model shown in Figure 3(a), where the transmis- PL
=
(2ωLm ) 2

(4)
sion line is represented by the ideal 1:1 transformer [4]. PS RS2 + ( 2ωLm )2
The resistance R0 represents the losses of the transmis-
sion line. An approximation to the magnetizing induc- which gives the minimum operating frequency fmin for a
tance can be made by considering the outer surface of the given magnetizing inductance Lm, taking into account the
coaxial cable to be the same as that of a straight wire (or maximum decrease of the output power by 3 dB, as
linear conductor), which, at higher frequencies where the
skin effect causes the current to be concentrated on the RS
fmin ≥ (5)
outer surface, would have the self-inductance of 4πLm

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Figure 5 · Schematic configura-

tions of a 4:1 coaxial cable trans-
former.

A similar low-frequency model for Figure 6 · Schematic configura-

a coaxial cable transformer using tions of a 9:1 coaxial cable trans-
twisted or parallel wires is shown in former.
Figure 3(b) [4]. Here, the model is
symmetrical as both conductors are
exposed to any magnetic material where RS is the source resistance and
and therefore contribute identically RL is the load resistance.
to the losses and low-frequency per- Figure 4(b) shows an impedance
formance of the transformer. transformer acting as a phase invert-
An approach using a transmission er, where the load resistance is
line based on a single bifilar wound included between terminals 1 and 4
coil to realize a broadband 1:4 to become a 1:4 balun. This technique
impedance transformation was intro- is called the bootstrap effect and
duced by Ruthroff [12, 13]. In this doesn’t have the same high frequency
case, by using a core material of suf- response as Guanella equal-delay
ficiently high permeability, the num- approach because it adds a delayed
ber of turns can be significantly voltage to a direct one [14]. The delay
reduced. Figure 4(a) shows the circuit becomes excessive when the trans-
schematic of an unbalanced-to-unbal- mission line reach a significant frac-
anced 1:4 transmission line trans- tion of a wavelength.
former where terminal 4 is connected Figure 5(a) shows the physical
to the input terminal 1. As a result, implementation of the 4:1 impedance
for V = V1 = V2, the output voltage is Ruthroff transformer using a coaxial
twice the input voltage, and the cable arranged inside the ferrite core.
transformer has a 1:2 voltage step-up At lower frequencies, such a trans-
ratio. As the ratio of input voltage to former can be considered an ordinary
input current is one-fourth the load 2:1 voltage autotransformer. To
voltage to load current, the trans- improve the performance at higher
former is fully matched for maximum frequencies, it is necessary to add an
power transfer when RL = 4RS, and additional phase-compensating line
the characteristic impedance of the of the same length shown in Fig. 5(b),
transmission line Z0 is equal to the resulting in a Guanella ferrite-based
geometric mean of the source and 4:1 impedance transformer. In this
load impedances: case, a ferrite core is necessary only
for the upper line because the outer
Z0 = RS RL (6) conductor of the lower line is ground-
ed at both ends and no current is
flowing through it. A current I driven impedance coaxial cable transformer
into the inner conductor of the upper shown in Figuer 6(b). The character-
line produces a current I that flows in istic impedance of each transmission
the outer conductor of the upper line, line is specified by the voltage
resulting in a current 2I flowing into applied to the end of the line and the
the load RL. Because the voltage 2V current flowing through the line and
from the transformer input is divided is equal to Z0.
in two equal parts between the coax- By using the transmission-line
ial line and the load, such a trans- baluns with different integer-trans-
former provides impedance transfor- Figure 7 · Schematic configuration formation ratios in certain connec-
mation from RS = 2Z0 into RL = Z0/2, of an equal-delay 2.25:1 unun. tion, it is possible to obtain the frac-
where Z0 is the characteristic tional-ratio baluns and ununs [2, 19,
impedance of each coaxial line. The 20]. Figure 7 shows a transformer
bandwidth extension for the Ruthroff ments for the 3:1 voltage coaxial configuration for obtaining an
transformers can also be achieved by cable transformers, which produce impedance ratio of 2.25:1, which con-
using transmission lines with step- 9:1 impedance transformation. A cur- sists of a 1:1 Guanella balun on the
function and exponential changes in rent I driven into the inner conductor top combined with a 1:4 Guanella
their characteristic impedances [15, of the upper line in Figure 6(a) will balun where voltages on the left-
16]. To adopt this transmission line cause a current I to flow in the outer hand side are in series and on the
transformer for microwave planar conductor of the upper line. This cur- right-hand side are in parallel [19].
applications, the coaxial line can be rent then produces a current I in the In this case, the left-hand side has
replaced by a pair of stacked strip outer conductor of the lower line, the higher impedance. In a matched
conductors or coupled microstrip resulting in a current 3I flowing into condition, this transformer should
lines [17, 18]. the load RL. The lowest coaxial line have a high frequency response simi-
Figure 6 shows similar arrange- can be removed, resulting in a 9:1 lar to a single transmission line. By

HFeLink 166
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COMBINERS & COUPLERS

Figure 9 · Coaxial cable combiner.

Figure 8 · Schematic configurations of a fractional Figure 10 · Two-cable hybrid combiner with grounded
1:2.25 impedance transformer. ballast resistor and load.

grounding the corresponding terminals (shown by dashed a load impedance of 112.5 Ω.

line), it becomes a broadband unun. Different ratios can By using the coaxial cable transformers, the output
be obtained with other configurations. For example, using powers from two or more power sources can be combined.
a 1:9 Guanella balun below the 1:1 unit results in a 1.78:1 Figure 9 shows an example of such a transformer, com-
impedance ratio, whereas, with a 1:16 balun, the bining two in-phase signals when both signals are deliv-
impedance ratio becomes 1.56:1. ered to the load RL and no signal will be dissipated in the
On the other hand, the overall 1:1.5 voltage trans- ballast resistor R0 if their amplitudes are equal [12]. The
former configuration can be achieved by using the cas- main advantage of this transformer is the zero longitudi-
cade connection of a 1:3 voltage transformer to increase nal voltage along the line for equal input powers; as a
the impedance by 9 times, and a 2:1 voltage transformer result, no losses occur in the ferrite core. When one input
to decrease the impedance by 4 times, which block signal source (for example power amplifier) defaults or
schematic is shown in Figure 8(a) [20]. The practical con- disconnects, the longitudinal voltage becomes equal to
figuration using coaxial cables and ferrite cores is shown half a voltage of another input source. For this trans-
in Figure 8(b). Here, the currents I / 3 in the inner con- former, it is possible to combine two out-of-phase signals
ductors of two lower lines cause an overall current 2I / 3 in when the ballast resistor is considered the load, and the
the outer conductor of the upper line, resulting in a cur- load resistor in turn is considered the ballast resistor. The
rent 2I / 3 flowing into the load RL. A load voltage 3V / 2 is schematic of another hybrid coaxial cable transformer
out of phase with a longitudinal voltage V / 2 along the using as a combiner is shown in Figure 10. The advantage
upper line, resulting in a voltage V at the transformer of this combiner is that both the load RL and the ballast
input. The lowest line also can be eliminated with direct resistor R0 are grounded. These hybrid transformer-based
connection of the points at both ends of its inner conduc- combiners can also be used for the power division when
tor, as in the case of the 2:1 and 3:1 Ruthroff voltage the output power from a single source is divided and
transformers shown in Figs. 5(a) and 6(b), respectively. If delivered into two independent loads. In this case, the
the source impedance is 50 ohms, then the characteristic original load and the two signal sources should be
impedance of all three transmission lines should be 75 switched. As it turns out, the term “hybrid” comes not
ohms. In this case, the matched condition corresponds to from the fact that the transformer might be constructed

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Figure 12 · Fully matched and isolated coaxial cable

combiner.

RL of R0 = RL = Z0, where Z0 is the characteristic

impedance of the each transmission line of the same
length.

Baluns
Baluns are very important elements in the design of
mixers, push-pull amplifiers, or oscillators to link a sym-
metrical (balanced) circuit to an asymmetrical (unbal-
anced) circuit. Therefore, it makes sense to discuss their
Figure 11 · Coaxial cable combiners with increased circuit configurations and performance in details sepa-
isolation. rately. The main requirements to baluns are to provide an
accurate 180-degree phase shift over required frequency
bandwidth, with minimum loss and equal balanced
of two different entities (for example, cable and resistor), impedances. In power amplifiers and oscillators, lack of
but just because it is being driven by two signals as symmetry will degrade output power and efficiency.
opposed to only one. Consequently, the hybrid trans- Besides, the symmetrical port must be well isolated from
former represents a four-port device having two input ground to minimize an unwanted effect of parasitic capac-
ports, one sum port and one difference port. The unique itances.
characteristic of the hybrid transformer is its ability to A wire-wound transformer with a simplified equiva-
isolate the two input signal sources. lent schematic, shown in Figure 13(a), provides an excel-
Figure 11(a) shows a coaxial cable two-way combiner lent broadband balun covering in commercial applica-
where the input signals having the same amplitudes and tions frequencies from low kHz to beyond 2 GHz. They are
phases at ports 2 and 3 are matched at higher frequencies usually realized with a center-tapped winding that pro-
when all lines are of the same lengths and RS = Z0 = RL / 2 vides a short circuit to even-mode (common-mode) signals
= R0 / 2 [2]. In this case, the isolation C23 between these while having no effect on the differential (odd-mode) sig-
input ports can be calculated by nal. Wire-wound transformers are more expensive than
the printed or lumped LC baluns, which are more suitable
( )
C23 = 10 log10 ⎡⎣4 1 + 4 cot 2 θ ⎤⎦ dB (7) in practical mixer designs. However, unlike wire-wound
transformers, the lumped LC baluns are narrow-band as
where θ is the electrical length of each transmission line. containing the resonant elements.
In order to improve the isolation, the symmetrical ballast Figure 13(b) shows the circuit schematic of a lattice-
resistor R0 should be connected through two additional type LC balun that was proposed long ago for combining
lines, as shown in Figure 11(b), where all transmission powers in push-pull amplifiers and their delivery to
lines have the same electrical lengths. antenna [21]. It consists of two capacitors and two induc-
Figure 12 shows a coaxial cable two-way combiner tors, which produce the ±90-degree phase shifts at the
that is fully matched and isolated in pairs [2]. Such com- output ports. The values of identical inductances L and
biners can be effectively used in high power broadcasting capacitances C can be obtained by
VHF FM and VHF-UHF TV transmitters. In this case, for
power amplifiers with the identical output impedances
Rout RL
RS1 and RS2 when RS1 = RS2 = Z0 / 2, it is necessary to L= (8)
choose the values of the ballast resistor R0 and the load ω0

30 High Frequency Electronics

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COMBINERS & COUPLERS

Figure 14 · Circuit arrangement with two cable transformers for push-pull

operation.

their components.
1 In monolithic microwave applica-
C= (9)
ω0 Rout RL tions where the lumped inductances
are usually replaced by transmission
where ω0 is the center bandwidth fre- lines, the designs with microstrip
quency, Rout is the balanced output coupled lines, Lange couplers, or mul-
resistance, and RL is the unbalanced tilayer coupled structures are very
load resistance. When designing this popular. However, the electrical
Figure 13 · Different circuit config- circuit, it is important to be confident length of the transmission lines at
urations of 1:1 balun. that the operating frequency is well center bandwidth frequency is nor-
below the self-resonant frequencies of mally set to a quarter-wavelength,
which is too large for applications in
wireless communication systems.
Therefore, it is very attractive to use
the lumped-distributed balun struc-
tures, which can significantly reduce
the balun size and, at the same time,
can satisfy the required electrical
characteristics. Figure 13(c) shows
such a compact balun with lumped-
distributed structure consisting of
the two coupled planar microstrip
lines and two parallel capacitors,
where the input transmission line is
grounded at midpoint and the output
transmission line is grounded at its
one port [22]. Without these capaci-
tors, it is necessary to leave a very
small spacing between quarter-wave
microstrip lines to achieve a 3-dB
coupling between them. However, by
optimizing the balun elements
around the center bandwidth of 900
MHz, the planar structure of approx-
imately one-sixteenth the size of the
conventional quarter-wavelength
structure was realized, with spacing
S = 8 mils using an FR4 board with
substrate thickness of 300 mils.
Figure 14 shows the circuit
Figure 15 · Schematic configurations of Marchand balun.

arrangement with two coaxial line T2 represents a 1:1 balun, in order to

transformers combined to provide a provide maximum power delivery to
push-pull operation of the power the load RL, the output equivalent
amplifier by creating a balanced-to- resistance of each active device
unbalanced impedance transforma- should be two times smaller.
tion with higher spectral purity. For a simple 1:1 transmission-line
Ideally, the out-of-phase RF signals balun realized with a twisted wire
from both active devices will have pair or coaxial cable, the balanced
pure half-sinusoidal waveforms, end is isolated from ground only at
which contain (according to the the center bandwidth frequency. To
Fourier series expansion) only funda- compensate for the short-circuited
mental and even harmonic compo- line reactance over certain frequency
nents. This implies a 180-degree shift bandwidth around center frequency,
between fundamental components a series open-circuited transmission
from both active devices and in-phase line was introduced by Marchand,
condition for remaining even har- resulting in a compensated balun,
monic components. In this case, the the simplified schematic of which is
transformer T1 representing a phase shown in Figure 15(a) [23]. In this
inverter is operated as a filter for case, at center bandwidth frequency
even harmonics because currents when the electrical length of the com-
flow through its inner and outer con- pensated line is a quarter-wave-
ductors in opposite directions. For length, the load resistance RL is seen
each fundamental flowing through unchanged. When this structure is
its inner and outer conductors in the realized with coaxial cables, to elimi-
same directions, it works as an RF nate unwanted current existing in
choke, the impedance of which the outer conductor and correspond-
depends on the core permeability. ing radiation, it is necessary to addi-
Consequently, since the transformer tionally provide the certain coupling
 anced terminal is connected to the
microstrip line located at the upper
metallization level, whereas the bal-
anced load is connected to the
microstrip lines located at the lower
metallization level. The transmission
lines sections in different layers are
not isolated from each other. It
should be noted that, for a given set
of the output balanced and load
unbalanced resistances Rout and RL,
Figure 16 · Schematic configura- the characteristic impedances of the
tions of coupled-line Marchand outer and inner microstrip lines Z01
balun. and Z02 are not unique, and they can
be calculated from

between the coaxial cables forming a 1 Z02

C= (10)
transmission line with two outer con- 2 Z01
ductors, as shown in Figure 15(b)
[24]. Generally, the shunting reac-
tance of this compensating line can Rout RL
Z02 = 4 Z01 − (11)
reduce the overall balun reactance Z01
about center frequency or reverse its
sign depending on the balanced load where C is the coupling factor [26].
resistance, characteristic impedance However, a different choice of Z01 and
of the compensating line and cou- Z02 leads to a different frequency
pling (characteristic impedance) bandwidth. For example, for Rout = 50
between the outer conductors of two ohms and RL = 100 ohms, it was
lines. Hence, a compensating line can found that using the symmetrical
create a complementary reactance to directional coupler with Z01 = Z02 =
a balanced load and provide an 40.825 ohms results in a frequency
improved match over broader fre- bandwidth of 48.4% with ⏐S11⏐ < –10
quency range. At microwaves, wire- dB and amplitude imbalance within
wound or coaxial cable transformers 0.91 dB, whereas the frequency band-
are usually replaced by a pair of the width of 20.9% with amplitude
quarterwave coupled transmission imbalance of less than 1.68 dB will be
lines shown in Figure 15(c), thus realized for the nonsymmetrical case
resulting in a compact planar struc- when Z01 = 38 ohms and Z02 = 20.42
ture. It should be noted that general- ohms.
ly the characteristic impedances of The design of a three-line
the coaxial or coupled transmission microstrip balun, which basic
lines can be different to optimize the schematic is shown in Figure 16(b), is
frequency-bandwidth response. based on the equivalence between a
Multilayer configurations make six-port section of three coupled lines
the Marchand balun even more com- and a six-port combination of two
pact and can provide wide band- couplers [26]. The results of circuit
widths due to the tight coupling analysis and optimization show that
between coupled-line sections. the spacings between adjacent
Modeling and synthesis results of a microstrip lines are so narrow that it
two-layer monolithic Marchand is difficult to fabricate a single-layer
balun configuration with two-coupled three-line balun. For a two-layer
lines, the basic structure of which is three-line balun with two coupled
shown in Figure 16(a), is discussed in outer lines on the top metallization
[25]. In this configuration, the unbal- level, the spacing between these lines
 High Frequency Design
COMBINERS & COUPLERS

Figure 17 · Schematic configurations of a planar Figure 18 · Broadband parallel-connected coaxial

Marchand balun. cable 1:4 baluns.

is significantly wider than in a single-layer case. planar Marchand baluns using microstrip lines and
However, wider frequency range can be achieved using a lumped capacitors [29]. As an alternative, by employing
two-layer three-line balun with two coupled outer lines at two additional inductors at each balanced output and
the lower metallization level. For example, the measure- optimum coupling between the grounded strips shown in
ments results for this balun show that, being fabricated Figure 17(c), a frequency bandwidth of 53% centered
on the Duroid RT5880 substrate, it can provide a fre- around 6.2 GHz with size reduction of 64% over a con-
quency range of 2.13 to 3.78 GHz with amplitude imbal- ventional coupled-line Marchand balun is achieved [30]. A
ance within 2.12 dB and phase error of less than 4.51°. combined compensation technique uses a series capacitor
To improve the performance of multilayer Marchand at the unbalanced input port to improve the matching
balun based on microstrip-line technology over frequency bandwidth and inductors at the ground connections to
range, a short transmission line can be included connect- minimize amplitude and phase imbalance [31].
ing the two couplers, as shown in Figure 17(a) [27]. This Figure 18 shows the broadband parallel-connected
additional short microstrip line effectively compensates coaxial cable balun as an alternative to a series-connected
for the amplitude and phase imbalance caused by the dif- Marchand balun [32]. It consists of an unbalanced input
ference in even- and odd-mode phase velocities. Besides, coaxial cable connected to a dummy cable that maintains
to minimize the balun size, the transmission lines of the symmetry. On the opposite side of the balun, the output
coupler can be implemented in meander form that can inner and outer conductors are connected in parallel to
give up to 90% reduction in size. As a result, the phase each other, while the input inner and outer conductors of
and amplitude differences of the compensated balun were coaxial cables are cross-connected. The right-hand portion
within 180 ±10° and 0 ±1 dB over the frequency range of of the balun forms a high impedance balanced load. By
5 to 30 GHz. The compensation can also be implemented means of the cross connection, the high impedance is
by employing capacitors at each end of the coupled lines, reduced to a low impedance showing a 4:1 impedance
as shown in Figure 4.19(b) [28]. In this case, the capacitor transformation ratio, for example, from a balanced load of
will not affect the even-mode but effectively increases 200 ohms to a single-ended 50 ohms. The frequency band-
odd-mode phase length, thus resulting in a minimum width of the balun is limited by the shunting effect at
amplitude and phase imbalance over certain frequency lower frequencies and near half-wave resonance. These
bandwidth. An exact synthesis technique that is widely parallel-connected baluns can provide approximately four
used in filter design can be applied to develop and analyze times the operating frequency bandwidth of their series-
new classes of miniaturized mixed lumped-distributed connected counterparts as covering in the experiment the

36 High Frequency Electronics

 High Frequency Design
COMBINERS & COUPLERS
1962. Design Procedure for Single-layer and
frequency range from 160 to 4,000
14. J. Sevick, “A Simplified Analysis of Two-Layer Three-Line Baluns,” IEEE
MHz, a 25:1 bandwidth [33]. The par-
the Broadband Transmission Line Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol. MTT-
allel-connected balun may be realized Transformer,” High Frequency 46, Dec. 1998, 2514-2119.
in a variety of configurations, some of Electronics, vol. 3, Feb. 2004, 48-53. 27. K. Nishikawa, I. Toyoda, and T.
which are shown in Figure 18(b) and 15. R.T. Irish, “Method of Bandwidth Tokumitsu, “Compact and Broad-Band
18(c) [32, 33]. Extension for the Ruthroff Transformer,” Three-Dimensional MMIC Balun,” IEEE
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38 High Frequency Electronics