Ultra-wideband CPW Six-port Circuits Based on Multilayer Technology

In this paper, a new multilayer six-port circuit using ultra-wideband directional coupler is presented and implemented. The use of the multilayer technology allows having a compact circuit and a very large bandwidth. To validate this concept, a six-port prototype was fabricated and measured. Simulation and measurement results show the proposed six-port circuit can easily operate over an ultra-wide band from 4 to 7 GHz. Introduction: During recent years, there was a great interest in six-port technology due to its broad range of applications. Firstly, the six-port circuit has been well known for its ability to perform accurate low-cost microwave measurements of reflection coefficients of microwave networks [1]. In this area, the six-port circuit was firstly used as a low cost alternative to a vector analyzer. Secondly, the six-port technique was also applied to low-cost communication direct receivers [2, 3], which are less complex and allow a higher integration level compared to conventional heterodyne receivers [4]. Several six-port circuits with various configurations have been presented and examined [5-7]. However, these structures are implemented using a single-layer Ultra-wideband CPW Six-port Circuits Based on Multilayer Technology Mourad Nedil and Tayeb A. Denidni and Halim Boutayeb Page 1 of 13