A design of multi-stage, multi-way microstrip power dividers with broadband properties

We investigate a design method of multi-stage, multi-way microstrip power dividers to construct a compact low-loss power divider with number of outputs. First, we describe an integration design technique of multi-way power dividers founded on the planar circuit approach in combination with segmentation method, and design broadband 3- and 4-way power dividers. Next, we successfully design a 9-way power divider consisting of 3-way dividers of two-stage structure using a similar technique. As a result, the fractional bandwidths of nearly 90%, 100%, and 85% are obtained, respectively. The validity of these design results is confirmed by HFSS and an experiment.