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Microwave Circuit and

Systems
 At lower frequencies (below about 500 MHz) where lumped components are
less than λ/8 in length, it is convenient to define the component as a
frequency-independent R, L, or C.
 As the frequency increases, the component will have distributed effects or
added phase shift which must be accounted for in the analysis.
 Lumped components such as resistors, capacitors, and inductors make up
most of the glue that allows microwave discrete transistors and integrated
circuits to work.
 Lumped components provide impedance matching, attenuation, filtering, DC
bypassing, and DC blocking.
 More advanced lumped components such as chokes, baluns, directional
couplers, resonators, and EMI filters are a regular part of RF and microwave
circuitry.
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 As lumped components are used at higher and
higher frequencies, the intrinsic internal parasitics,
as well as the package and mounting parasitics play
a key role in determining overall circuit behavior
both in and out of the desired frequency range of
use.
 Mounting parasitics come from excess inductance
caused by traces between the component soldering
pad and a transmission line, and excess capacitance
from relatively large mounting pads and the
component body.

Resistors

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 The resistive material is deposited in a uniform thickness, tR, and has a finite
conductivity, σR.
 The material is almost always in a rectangle that allows the resistance to be
calculated by Equation 2.1.

 The inductance can be computed from a transmission line model or as a

ribbon inductor if the resistor is far enough above the ground plane.
 The ribbon inductor equation is given in Equation2.2, with all units MKS.

 For example, an 0805 package has an inductance of about 0.7 nH.

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 There are two types of capacitive parasitics.
 First, there is the shunt distributed capacitance to the ground plane, CP.
 The total permittivity, ε, is a product of the permittivity of free space, εO, and
the relative permittivity, εR.
 An estimate for effective width, wE, is 1.4*wR, but this depends on the ground
plane distance, h, and the line width, w.
 A more accurate method would be to just use the equivalent microstrip line
capacitance.

 For an 0805 resistor on 0.032" FR4 the capacitance will be on the order of 0.2
pF.
 As with the inductance, when the resistor has the same width as the
transmission line, the line C per unit length absorbs the parasitic capacitance.
 When the resistor is in shunt with the line, the parasitic capacitance will be
seen, often limiting the return loss of a discrete pad.
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 An additional capacitance is the contact-to-contact capacitance, CS.
 This capacitance will typically only be noticed with very high resistances.

Capacitors
 Multilayer chip capacitors are available in the same package styles as chip resistors.
 Parallel plate capacitors obey the equation below.

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 Multilayer chip capacitors are a sandwich of many thin electrodes between
dielectric layers.
 The end terminations connect to alternating electrodes, as shown in Figure 2.4b.
 Multilayer capacitors have a more complicated structure than parallel plate
capacitors.
 Their capacitance is given by Equation 2.5, where tL is the dielectric layer
thickness and wP is the plate width.
 The series resistance of the capacitor, Rs, is determined by the parallel
combination of all the plate resistance and the conductive loss, Gp, is due to the
dielectric loss.

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Inductors
 Inductors are typically printed on the PCB or surface mount chips.
 Important specifications for these inductors are their Q, their self-resonance
frequency, and their maximum current.
 Surface mount inductors come in the same sizes as chip resistors and capacitors, as
well as in air-core “springs.”

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 The solenoid formula given in Equation 2.8 uses MKS units and describes both
wound and “spring” inductors.
 In Equation 2.8, n is the number of turns, d is the coil diameter, and l is the coil
length.

 The inductor Q is determined by the frequency, inductance, and effective

series resistance as shown in Equation 2.9.

 The effective series resistance, Rs, comes from the conductor resistance and
the core loss when a magnetic core is used.
 The conductor resistance is due to both DC and skin effect resistance as given
by Equations 2.1 and 2.10

 where ρR is the perimeter of the wire and δ is the skin depth,

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 Parasitic capacitance of microwave inductors is given by:

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 A useful list of the frequency bands is given in Table 1.5.
(Vendelin & Pavio, p. 17)

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 When a number of microwave devices are connected by means of sections of
transmission lines or waveguides, we obtain a microwave circuit.
 A microwave system consists of passive and active microwave components
arranged to perform a useful function.

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 A transmitting antenna can be viewed as a device that converts a guided
electromagnetic wave on a transmission line into a plane wave propagating in
free space.
 One side of an antenna appears as an electrical circuit element, while the other
side provides an interface with a propagating plane wave.
 Antennas are inherently bidirectional, in that they can be used for both transmit
and receive functions.

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 Wire antennas include dipoles, monopoles, loops, sleeve dipoles, Yagi–Uda arrays, and
related structures. Wire antennas generally have low gains, and are most often used at
lower frequencies (HF to UHF).
 They have the advantages of light weight, low cost, and simple design.
 Aperture antennas include open-ended waveguides, rectangular or circular horns,
reflectors, lenses, and reflect arrays.
 Aperture antennas are most commonly used at microwave and millimeter wave
frequencies, and have moderate to high gains.
 Printed antennas include printed slots, printed dipoles, and micro-strip patch antennas.
 These antennas can be made with photolithographic methods, with both radiating
elements and associated feed circuitry fabricated on dielectric substrates.
 Printed antennas are most often used at microwave and millimeter wave frequencies,
and can be easily arrayed for high gain.

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 Array antennas consist of a regular arrangement of antenna elements with a feed
network.
 Pattern characteristics such as beam pointing angle and side-lobe levels can be
controlled by adjusting the amplitude and phase excitation of the array elements.
 An important type of array antenna is the phased array, in which variable-phase
shifters are used to electronically scan the main beam of the antenna.

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 Wireless communications involves the transfer of information between two
points without direct connection.
 Most modern wireless systems rely on RF or microwave signals, usually in the
UHF to millimeter wave frequency range.
 Because of spectrum crowding and the need for higher data rates, the trend is to
higher frequencies, so the majority of wireless systems today operate at
frequencies ranging from about 800 MHz to a few gigahertz.
 One way to categorize wireless systems is according to the nature and
placement of the users:
point-to-point systems
Point-to-multipoint systems
Multipoint-to-multipoint systems
 Another way to characterize wireless systems is in terms of the directionality of
communication.
simplex system
half-duplex system
Full-duplex systems
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 Radar, or radio detection and ranging, is the oldest application of microwave
technology, dating back to World War II.
 In its basic operation, a transmitter sends out a signal, which is partly reflected by a
distant target, and then detected by a sensitive receiver.
 If a narrow-beam antenna is used, the target’s direction can be accurately given by
the angular position of the antenna.
 The distance to the target is determined by the time required for a pulsed signal to
travel to the target and back, and the radial velocity of the target is related to the
Doppler shift of the return signal.
 Below are listed some of the typical applications of radar systems.
 Civil Applications
 Military Applications
 Scientific Applications

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Figure: Basic monostatic and bistatic radar systems. (a) Monostatic radar system.
(b) Bistatic radar system.

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 If the transmitter radiates a power Pt through an antenna of gain G, and R is the
distance from the target
 The radar equation:

 The radar cross section, σ, of the target, is given mathematically as

𝑃𝑠
𝜎= 𝑚2
𝑃𝑡
 Note that the received power varies as 1/R4, which implies that a high-power
transmitter and a sensitive low-noise receiver are needed to detect targets at long
ranges.
 the maximum detectable range is given as

where 𝑃𝑚𝑖𝑛 is the minimum detectable power by the receiver.

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Example: A pulse radar operating at 10 GHz has an antenna with a gain of 28 dB and a
transmitter power of 2 kW (pulse power). If it is desired to detect a target with a cross section
of 12 m2, and the minimum detectable signal is −90 dBm, what is the maximum range of the
radar?

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Pulse Radar
 A pulse radar determines target range by measuring the round-trip time of a pulsed microwave signal.

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 If the target has a velocity component along the line of sight of the radar, the
returned signal will be shifted in frequency relative to the transmitted frequency due
to the Doppler effect.
 If the transmitted frequency is f0, and the radial target velocity is v, then the shift in
frequency, or the Doppler frequency, will be

where c is the velocity of light.

 The received frequency is then f0 ± fd, where the plus sign corresponds to an
approaching target and the minus sign corresponds to a receding target.
 Since the return of a pulse radar from a moving target will contain a Doppler shift, it
is possible to determine both the range and velocity (and position, if a narrow-beam
antenna is used) of a target with a single radar.
 Such a radar is known as a pulse-Doppler radar, and it offers several advantages over
pulse or Doppler radars.
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Figure: Doppler Radar System

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 The basic transmitter is given in Figure below.

Figure: Basic Transmitter System

 A typical RF receiver is given in Figure 1.21 [1.37].

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