Design and Analysis of Two Six - port Correlators

This paper presents design and analysis of two different Ultra Wide band (UWB) six-port correlators for transmitter and receiver applications. The two designs analyzed and compared in terms of transmission parameters, relative bandwidth and occupied area. On one side, design of microwave components for multiGiga Hertz bandwidth is a non-trivial challenge. Meeting such challenging performance specifications requires a high degree of Electronic Design Automation (EDA)-tool skills and theoretical understanding of the limits and possibilities offered by the used circuit implementation. On the other side, an appropriate design methodology must be established and systematically used along the entire project development. Two different designs of a sixport correlator for more than 3 GHz frequency bandwidth are presented. The systematic design approach applied in the case of the six-port correlator can be extrapolated for any microwave circuit using passive components with transmission lines.