An N-Way Reconfigurable Power Divider

This paper presents a simple structure for the realization of an N-way reconfigurable power divider. With this N-way reconfigurable power divider, N different transmission modes with 2
^N
- 1 states can be realized by the use of only 3
^N
-1 p-i-n diodes. In each transmission mode, the input port and transmission ports are all matched and high isolations between transmission ports are obtained. To realize matching performances under different transmission modes, a reconfigurable multiple-impedance transformer network (RMITN) is introduced at the input port of the proposed divider. With the parameters of N -1 p-i-n diodes under different bias conditions, N different load impedances can be all transformed into Z0 (port impedance) by RMITN, where load impedances can be real or complex impedances. In addition, no lumped elements, such as dc blocking capacitors, are required in the proposed reconfigurable divider. For verification, a 5-GHz four-way reconfigurable power divider is designed and fabricated. Four different kinds of transmission modes (four-path mode, three-path mode, two-path mode, and single-path mode) with 15 states are realized by the prototype. The measured transmission losses at 5 GHz in the four-path, three-path, two-path, and single-path modes are less than 0.78, 1.32, 1.9, and 1.74 dB, respectively; while in those modes, the isolations between different ports are higher than 30.2, 31.5, 24, and 27.4 dB, respectively.