IEICE TRANS. ELECTRON., VOL.E82–C, NO.

7 JULY 1999
1098

PAPER Special Issue on Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Technology

Analysis and Design of Conductor-Backed Asymmetric

Coplanar Waveguide Lines Using Conformal Mapping
Techniques and Their Application to End-Coupled Filters
Kee Woon TAN† and Sener UYSAL†a) , Nonmembers

SUMMARY The conductor-backed asymmetrical coplanar
waveguide or micro-coplanar strip (MCS) line has been analyzed.
The conformal mapping method is used to calculate the quasi-
static effective permittivity εef f and characteristic impedance
Z0 . The computed results of the present work are found to be
in good agreement when compared with the results obtained us-
ing the method reported by Yamashita et al. [1] and experimental
values reported in [2]. A novel MCS end-coupled half-wavelength
long resonator filter is designed to illustrate an application of the
present work. The designed filter has 4% bandwidth at a center
frequency of 10.5 GHz. The measured insertion loss is approx-
imately 3.4 dB. One of the main advantages of the MCS filter
compared to the CPW filter is that bond wires do not have to
be used to maintain both coplanar ground at the same poten-
tial. The MCS filter is also easily integrable with other planar
components and does not require a complicated transition to mi-
crostrip.
lem as there is only a single coplanar ground. The MCS
also allows greater circuit minimization since it has only
one coplanar ground. The presence of a bottom ground
plane provides improved mechanical strength, better
power handling ability and easy integration with mi-
crostrip lines in MMIC. Any coplanar grounds can also
be easily grounded by means of via holes to the con-
ductor backing.
The Rectangular Boundary Division Method
(RBDM) is used in [1] to analyze the MCS line, which
results in long polynomial fomulas for CAD. In another
paper by Qian and Yamashita [2], closed-form design
equations for 50 Ω MCS lines were obtained by curve
fitting data obtained from RBDM. The lack of any fast
key words: asymmetric CPW, microwave lter, end-coupled closed-form equations for the MCS is a severe handicap
lter
1. Introduction
The conductor-backed asymmetrical coplanar wave-
guide or micro-coplanar strip line is first proposed by E.
Yamashita [1] to avoid the proximity effect of a coplanar
ground near a microstrip line. The MCS configuration
is illustrated in Fig. 1.
The MCS line consists of a conductor of width w
in parallel with a single infinite coplanar ground to-
gether with a bottom ground plane. The planar ar-
rangement of both conductors is advantageous in that
it allows simple connections of 2 terminal microwave
components and also lowers the influence of substrate
thickness on the parameters of the transmission line.
In coplanar waveguide (CPW), an undesirable slotline-
mode surface wave may be excited if the two coplanar
grounds are not at the same ground potential. Thus,
air bridges or bond wires are usually used to ensure
that the two coplanar grounds are kept at the same po-
tential. However, the air bridges introduce unwanted
inductances and complex circuit topology may results
in floating grounds. The MCS line eliminates this prob-
Manuscript received December 26, 1998.
Manuscript revised March 15, 1999.
†
The authors are with the Electrical Engineering De-
partment, National University of Singapore, 10 Kent Ridge
Crescent, Singapore 119260.
a) E-mail: elesu@nus.edu.sg
in using the line in microwave circuits. The purpose of
this paper is to derive simple closed-form expressions
for the characteristic impedance, Z0 , and effective di-
electric constant, εef f , of the MCS line using conformal
mapping techniques. The quasi-static conformal map-
ping method has been used to analyze many types of
coplanar lines [3], [4], providing satisfactory accuracy at
microwave frequencies. The derived equations in this
paper are then used to design an end gap-coupled half
wave resonator band pass filter [5]. The designed fil-
ter retains all important advantages of the MCS line
compared to CPW or microstrip filters.
2. Analysis of MCS Line
The zeroth-order approximation of a quasi-TEM struc-
ture is assumed. The analysis is based on the assump-
tion that the air-dielectric interface can be modeled
as perfect magnetic walls (Neumann boundary condi-
tions). Hence, the total capacitance per unit length of
the line can be computed as the sum of the capacitance
of the upper half plane (in air) and the lower half plane
(in dielectric). The conductor thickness is assumed to
Fig. 1 Micro-coplanar strip (MCS) line.
TAN and UYSAL: ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF CONDUCTOR-BACKED ASYMMETRIC COPLANAR WAVEGUIDE LINES
1099

be infinitely thin. As a rule of thumb, this approxi- where k2 = a/b = s/(s + w). To find C2 , the fol-
mation is satisfied if the substrate thickness h is larger lowing conformal mapping sequences are adopted. The
than the lateral extension of the line b. conductor backing and the dielectric is mapped into a
Thus, the total capacitance of the MCS line is: t-plane (Fig. 3) using the following mapping function:
C = C1 + C2 (1) t = exp(zπ/h) (4)
where C1 is the capacitance in the upper half plane s1 = C t − P t
(air) and C2 is the capacitance in the dielectric. = exp(sπ/h) − 1 (5a)
The following mapping function is used to map the
upper half plane of the MCS line into a parallel plate w1 = Dt − Ct
capacitor as shown in Fig. 2: = exp((s + w)π/h) − exp(sπ/h)

t = exp(sπ/h)[exp(wπ/h) − 1] (5b)
dt
w=A  +B (2)
0 t(t − a)(t − b) The t-plane configuration is similar to the evaluation
The shape factor or modulus of the rectangle in the of C1 using (2).
t-plane is given by: Thus

K  (k) C2 = ε0 εr K  (k1 )/K(k1 ) (6)

K(k) where k12 = s1 /(s1 + w1 ). Hence, the total capacitance
where K(k) is the elliptical integral of the first kind and of the line is given by:

k2 = a/b = s/(s + w) C = C1 + C2
K  (k) K  (k1 )
The ratio K(k)/K  (k) can be easily found from tables = ε0
K(k)
+ ε0 εr
K(K1 )
(7)
or it can be approximated by: for K/K  ≥ 1 or k ≥
0.707:
εef f = C(εr )/C(1)
K/K  = (1/π)ln{4(1 + k)/(1 − k)}
for K/K  ≤ 1 or k ≤ 0.707: K  (k1 ) K(k)
1 + εr
K(k1 ) K  (k)
K/K  = π/[ln{4(1 + k )/(1 − k )}] εef f = (8)
K  (k1 ) K(k)
1+
where k = (1 − k2 )0.5 . Thus, from Fig. 2, K(k1 ) K  (k)
and
C1 = εo K  (k)/K(k) (3)
Z0 = 1/(Vph C)
120π 1
= √  (9)
εef f K (k) K  (k1 )
+
K(k) K(k1 )
The above equations are valid for h > (s + w).

Fig. 2 Conformal mapping to evaluate C1 .

Fig. 3 Conformal mapping to evaluate C2 .


1100
Table 1 Results of MCS with εr = 10.1 and h = 400 µm.
Fig. 4 Re[Z0 ] (Ω) against w (mils).
Fig. 5 Re[εef f ] against w (mils).
3. Results and Discussion for MCS Line
In Table 1, calculated results for the MCS line using the
derived equations are compared to RBDM and mea-
sured results taken from [1], [2]. It is observed that the
results obtained using the derived equations are in good
agreement with the experimental results and RBDM
provided that h > (s + w). When h < (s + w), the
accuracy of the conformal mapping equations deteri-
orates. To further verify the accuracy of the derived
equations, a commercial full wave simulation software,
IE3DTM [6], is used to simulate MCS lines (h = 25 mil,
s = 6.5 mil, εr = 9.9) with different conductor width,
w. The simulated results are compared to values ob-
tained by conformal mapping in Figs. 4 and 5.
From Figs. 4 and 5, it is observed that the Confor-
mal Mapping results are in very good agreement with
the IE3DTM simulated results. Figure 4 shows that
even when (s + w) is slightly greater than h, Eq. (9) for
the characteristic impedance of MCS line is still very
IEICE TRANS. ELECTRON., VOL.E82–C, NO.7 JULY 1999
Fig. 6 Schematic of half wavelength resonator filter.
accurate. However, the accuracy of Eq. (8) for the effec-
tive permittivity deteriorates as (s+w) > h as shown in
Fig. 5. When (s + w) is very much greater than h, both
Eqs. (8) and (9) should not be used. This limitation
is easily checked as Eqs. (8) and (9) do not give values
similar to that of microstrip lines when s approaches
infinity.
It has been pointed out [7] that the proximity ef-
fects between the microstrip line and a coplanar ground
are significant in connection with circuit packing den-
sity in GaAs MMIC. Hence, the derived equations
will be useful in maintaining constant characteristic
impedance of microstrip line in the vicinity of a copla-
nar ground, as well as designing microstrip filters or
couplers near coplanar ground.
4. MCS End Gap-Coupled Resonator Filter
The MCS line offers several important advantages com-
pared to the microstrip line and coplanar waveguide as
discussed. End-coupled half wavelength microstrip fil-
ter has been widely investigated and discussed in the
literature [8]–[10] and the CPW end-coupled half wave-
length resonator microstrip filter was first reported by
Williams and Schwarz [11]. In this article, we introduce
a new MCS end-coupled half wavelength resonator fil-
ter. The designed filter retains all the important advan-
tages of MCS line; single top planar ground to eliminate
the undesirable coplanar slotline mode, bottom ground
plane to increase mechanical strength, improve power
handling ability as well as easy integration to microstrip
circuits.
4.1 Design Methodology
The MCS end-coupled filter is designed by following
the design procedures for microstrip end-coupled filters
outlined in [8]–[10]. The schematic of the proposed fil-
ter is shown in Fig. 6. The admittance inverters are
labeled Ji,i+1 and are separated by λ/2 transmission
line resonators.
The inverter parameters are calculated with the
use of equations provided in [10]:

π∆ω
J01 = Y0 (10)
2g0 g1 ω1
π∆ω 1
Ji,i+1 |i=1 to n−1 = Y0 √ (11)
2ω1 gi gi+1
TAN and UYSAL: ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF CONDUCTOR-BACKED ASYMMETRIC COPLANAR WAVEGUIDE LINES
Fig. 7 Schematic of admittance inverter.

π∆ω
Jn,n+1 = Y0 (12)
2gn gn+1 ω1
where gi are the element values and ω1 is the corner fre-
quency of the corresponding low-pass prototype. ∆ω is
the fractional bandwidth of the band-pass filter, Ji,i+1
are the admittance inverter parameters and Y0 is the
characteristic admittance of the resonators. The res-
onators are normally chosen to have identical charac-
teristic impedance to simplify the design.
The admittance inverters are realized using MCS
gaps. The inverters could be modeled as a π network
or a series capacitor embedded between negative elec-
trical lengths of transmission lines [8]. A shunt capaci-
tance in the π network model accounts for the fringing
capacitance and models a MCS gap more accurately.
However, the series capacitance model is more suitable
for filter design due to its simplicity and hence was used
in this work. Moreover, the shunt capacitance could be
considered as a small effective lengthening of the ad-
joining transmission lines which can then be deducted
from the adjacent resonators.
The series capacitance, Ci,i+1 and the negative
electrical length, −ρi,i+1 in the admittance inverters
shown in Fig. 7 are calculated with the use of equations
provided in [10]:
Ji,i+1 Y02
Csi,i+1 = (13)
2πf0 (Y02 − Ji,i+1
2 )
 
−1 Ji,i+1
ρi,i+1 = tan (14)
Y0
In order to determine the width of the MCS gap nec-
essary to implement the required admittance inverter,
the series capacitor and an adjoining transmission line
of arbitrary length d are simulated using IE3D [6], a
full-wave simulator. After noting the S-parameter per-
formance at the filter’s center frequency, the capacitor
is replaced by a MCS gap. The MCS gap width and
the length of adjoining transmission line are then opti-
mized to obtain the same S-parameter performance as
the previous lumped capacitance circuit. The lumped
capacitance circuit can be replaced by the correspond-
ing MCS gap circuit as they are electrically identical.
Interdigitated gaps [11] can be used to achieve capaci-
tance values that are too large to be implemented using
simple MCS gaps. The interdigitated gaps are designed
1101
Fig. 8 Layout of MCS filter (in mils).
Fig. 9 Detailed dimensions of interdigitated gaps.
such that the fingers and separation between the fingers
are within the limits of the fabrication process.
The negative lengths of transmission 7 lines in the
admittance inverters can be absorbed into the adjacent
half-wavelength resonators. Hence the resonators are
less than a half-wavelength long and their final lengths,
ri , are given by:
c
ri = √ (π − ρi−1,i − ρi,i+1 ) (15)
2πf0 εef f
where c is the speed of light in free space, f0 is the
center-frequency of the filter and εef f is the effective
dielectric constant of the MCS resonators. Once all
the dimensions are known, the whole circuit can be
simulated and optimized using IE3D.
4.2 Results for MCS Filter
A 4% bandwidth MCS filter is designed at a center fre-
quency of 10 GHz. The physical dimensions (given in
mils) of the filter are shown in Fig. 8. The detailed di-
mensions for the interdigitated gaps are shown in Fig. 9.
The filter was fabricated on a 25.4 mm2 , 0.635 mm
thick alumina (εr = 9.9) with 4 µm thick gold metal-
lization. 50 Ω transmission lines are used throughout
the design. The measured performance of the designed
filter is shown in Fig. 10.
The fabricated filter has a center frequency of
10.5 GHz and the measured insertion loss is approxi-
mately 3.4 dB. The measured insertion loss is reason-
able as it includes the loss due to the test fixture (this
was deduced as 0.6 dB at 10 GHz). Generally, narrow
band filters have a higher insertion loss as the effect of
finite resonator Q is more pronounced in a narrow band
design [11].
Conductor backed coplanar transmission lines are
seldom used due to the possibility of excitation of the

1102
Fig. 10 Measured S11 and S21 performance of MCS filter.
parallel-plate leakage. This power leakage phenomenon
is well documented for certain geometries of transmis-
sion lines with conductor backing [12]–[14]. Power leaks
in transverse directions, due to coupling to the charac-
teristic surface-wave mode of the substrate structure.
This leakage is particularly prohibitive for thin sub-
strates and higher frequencies, making the conductor
backed geometries potentially dangerous to use.
For the case of the MCS line, the presence of the
conductor backing introduces the same risk of excita-
tion of parallel plate mode, resulting in excessive leak-
age. Das [12] proposed four useful methods to sup-
press the parallel-plate leakage phenomenon in conduc-
tor backed transmission lines:
1. The use of shorting pins at regular intervals along
transmission lines.
2. The use of a dielectric-guide-coupled configuration.
3. The use of a two layered conductor backing config-
uration.
4. Dielectric loading on top of transmission line.
All the four methods above involve mechanically dif-
ficult operations. They also introduce difficulties in
simulating the design. Hence, it would be wise to fo-
cus on good design techniques to suppress the parallel
plate waveguide mode. Based on the available litera-
ture studies on the MCS line [1], [2], [15]. The following
general guidelines should be followed if possible:
1. MCS line should be fabricated on a thick substrate.
2. The ratio of the slot width over conductor width
(s/w) should be as large as possible.
3. The conductor width, w, should be chosen to be
as large as possible.
4. The slot width, s, should also be chosen to be as
large as possible.
It should be noted that the above guidelines are ideal
and it is usually difficult to satisfy all the given design
guidelines in practical circuit design.
IEICE TRANS. ELECTRON., VOL.E82–C, NO.7 JULY 1999
5. Conclusions
In this study, the MCS line is analyzed using confor-
mal mapping. Simple closed-form equations for the
characteristic impedance and effective permittivity of
MCS line are obtained. The accuracy of the presented
technique is verified by obtaining good agreement when
compared with published results and those obtained
from an electromagnetic simulator. The derived equa-
tions are then used in the design of an end gap-coupled
half wavelength resonator MCS filter. The measured
results of the filter are in good agreement with the de-
sign specifications.
One of the main advantages of the MCS filter com-
pared to the CPW filter is that bond wires do not have
to be used to maintain both coplanar grounds at the
same potential. The MCS filter is also smaller than the
corresponding CPW filter. The bottom ground plane in
the MCS line improves the mechanical strength of the
filter as well as its power handling ability. The MCS
filter also allows easy integration to microstrip circuits.
References
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method and simple design formulas of MCS lines proposed
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lel plate power leakage from conductor-backed transmission
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1103

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Kee Woon Tan was born in Sin-

gapore in 1973. He received his Bache-
lor of Engineering degree with first class
honours from National University of Sin-
gapore (NUS) in 1998. He is currently
pursuing his Master’s Degree in the field
of Microwaves in the Electrical Engineer-
ing Department in NUS under the Accel-
erated Master’s Degree Program. In 1997,
he was attached to British Telecommuni-
cation Research Laboratories in Martle-
sham Heath, Suffolk, UK. He is now attached to Microwave Lab-
oratory, Electrical Engineering Department, NUS. His current
research interests include microwave filters, conductor-backed
CPW technology and multilayer passive circuits.

Sener Uysal received the B.Eng. de-

gree (High Honours) in Electrical Engi-
neering from Eastern Mediterranean Uni-
versity in 1984, the M.Sc. degree in Dig-
ital Electronics and the Ph.D. degree in
Microwaves from King’s College London,
University of London, in 1986 and 1990,
respectively. He joined the Electrical
Engineering Department of the National
University of Singapore in 1992 as a Lec-
turer and was promoted to a Senior Lec-
turer in 1995. His previous appointment was at King’s College
London as a postdoctoral research fellow working on microwave
and millimeter wave techniques involving passive circuits. His
main areas of research are in coupled lines, filters and their appli-
cations in MICs. He is the inventor of bandpass-type microstrip
directional couplers and filters. He has published over 40 tech-
nical papers in international symposia and journals. He is the
author of the book: Nonuniform Line Microstrip Directional
Couplers and Filters published by Artech House, USA, in 1993.