Abstract

A stripline structure is closed and therefore protected against surrounding EMI and it is easy to bury in multiplayer structures, which offer higher circuit density. This thesis focuses on the evaluation (and verification via actual structures) of the correct simulation of striplines and, as a new aspect, the advantages of using a dual-stripline. Multiple design methods and electromagnetic simulation systems were tested and properties of these are compared.

For a reliable design it is still necessary to use at least two tools, at first a very fast tool having excellent circuit parameter optimization methods and then some electromagnetic simulator, which can be used to the complete the realizable layout. That is, because all the electromagnetic simulators suffer from the same limiting factors, the memory capacity of the computer and the unacceptable calculation time.

It has been discovered through modelling that the "cat-eye" shape having many more and larger local inaccuracies at the thinned edge areas of the sintered conductor in LTCC structures increases the conductor losses. Therefore it is important to develop new manufacturing methods capable of producing better-shaped conductors.

A combination of broadside coupled parallel connected striplines has been tested both in High Temperature Superconducting ( HTS ) and LTCC materials. A two-conductor stripline, a dual stripline, raises the power handling capability of a microwave bandpass HTS filter. In addition, it offers the possibility to use a normal metal protection layer at the surface of the superconductor without degradation of electrical properties, thus increasing the power handling capability even more. The dual stripline solution in LTCC would offer some preferable properties in high power filters only.

The shape of the ground plane used for trimming the coupling between resonators was also found to have a remarkable influence on the quality factor of the resonator. A quite narrow ground strip can offer a much better quality factor with the same coupling level than a meshed or continuous ground plane, but it requires accurate design and manufacturing methods. It would help to design filters with lower loss in the passband without compromises in the attenuation outside the passband.