Miniature high-Q double-spiral slot-line resonator filters

A new class of low insertion-loss miniaturized filters using slot-line resonators is proposed. Miniaturization is achieved by terminating the slot line with a double-spiral inductive termination at both ends. Using this miniaturized resonator, both positive and negative couplings may be realized, and therefore, both standard coupled-line and cross-coupled quasi-elliptic filters are realizable. The unloaded Q of these slot-line filters is considerably higher than that of miniaturized microstrip filters of comparable dimensions due to the inherent higher Q of the slot line. To demonstrate the validity of the design procedures and the performance characteristics, two different types of filters were fabricated and tested. One is a four-pole Chebyshev filter and the other is a quasi-elliptic filter where, in each case, the full-wave simulations show very good agreement with measurements.