Novel Reconfigurable Single-to-Balanced, Power-Dividing, and Single-Ended Filter With Frequency and Bandwidth Control

In this paper, a novel tunable filter with reconfigurable single-to-balanced (SE-BAL), power dividing (PD), and single-to-single-ended (SE) filtering functionalities is proposed, for the first time, without any additional switching circuit. The proposed filter only consists of three stepped-impedance resonators, which are loaded and connected by varactors in between. With a very simple and compact configuration, the proposed filter achieves multiple reconfigurable functionalities between SE-BAL filtering, PD filtering, and conventional SE bandpass filtering. Moreover, the reconfigurable SE-BAL, PD, and SE bandpass filter can not only offer continuously frequency tuning over a wide tuning range but also have independent bandwidth tuning and maintain good phase/amplitude balance in each tuning state. The proposed filter is designed and fabricated with the microstrip line technology; the measured results show that the SE-BAL, PD, and SE filtering functions can be continuously tuned from 1.02 to 1.32, 0.96 to 1.27, and 1 to 1.28 GHz, with 1-dB bandwidth tuning from 30 to 60, 30 to 110, and 70 to 130 MHz, respectively. The amplitude and phase imbalances of the SE-BAL and PD bandpass filter are less than 0.4 dB, 1.3° and 0.5 dB, 1.5°, respectively, in the passband of each tuning state. Good agreement was obtained between simulated and measured results.