Effect of nonlinear port impedances on distributed passive intermodulation in printed lines

The effect of weakly nonlinear terminations on the distributed passive intermodulation (PIM) generation in printed transmission lines has been investigated. The phenomenology based on the nonlinear transmission line model developed in the previous work has been generalised by introducing the new nonlinear boundary conditions. The developed model has been verified experimentally with the loose end connectors emulating weakly nonlinear source/load impedances. Comparison of the measurement and simulation results has proved that the presented model enables an accurate evaluation of the effect of the lumped nonlinearities on the distributed PIM generation in printed circuits.