IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 18, NO.

12, DECEMBER 2008 815

X-Band Substrate Integrated Waveguide Amplifier

Mostafa Abdolhamidi and Mahmoud Shahabadi

Abstract—Design and realization of a compact X-band

single-transistor amplifier with substrate integrated waveguide
(SIW)-based input and output matching networks is presented.
The overall size of the proposed SIW amplifier is only 1 5 g at
the center frequency. Using a calibration technique, we extract
the -parameters of the fabricated amplifier with reference to
its SIW ports. Measurements show that the amplifier features
10 dB of power gain with less than 2 dB of ripple and more than
10 dB of input and output return losses on the SIW ports in the
entire frequency band. Due to an appropriate modeling of the
constituent blocks of the amplifier, a good agreement between the
simulation and measurement results is observed.
Fig. 1. Hypothetical SIW-based microwave amplifier.
Index Terms—Calibration, microwave amplifier, substrate inte-
grated waveguide (SIW).

I. INTRODUCTION

UE to its relatively high-quality factor and its compati-

D bility with standard fabrication processes, the substrate
integrated waveguide (SIW) is a promising waveguide for a
large number of microwave applications [1], [2]. So far, dif-
ferent passive components and circuits such as receive/transmit
antennas [3], filters [4], [5], diplexers [6], directional couplers
[7], [8], and resonator cavities of oscillators [9], [10] have
been designed and fabricated using the SIW technology. In this
letter, we propose an active SIW circuit, namely a SIW ampli-
fier. One may attempt to realize this amplifier with the help of
SIW-to-microstrip transitions where the common microstrip
circuits such as microstrip stub matching can be exploited.
This leads to the hypothetical configuration depicted in Fig. 1.
However, our aim is to present an amplifier in which all the
components including its input and output matching circuits
are in the SIW technology.
Fig. 2 shows the overall structure of the proposed amplifier.
Here, the input and output matching networks are realized using
SIW-based components instead of microstrip elements. In ad-
dition, the input and output matching networks of the proposed
amplifier include dc-blocking printed interdigital capacitors. On
the other hand, through the integration of the amplifier elements
into the SIW, the overall size of the amplifier including the input
and output matching networks is less than at the center
frequency. Its application as a gain block in a SIW-based circuit
Manuscript received March 12, 2008; revised August 25, 2008. Current
version published December 04, 2008. This work was supported by the Iran
Telecommunication Research Center (ITRC).
The authors are with the Center of Excellence for Applied Electromagnetic
Systems, Photonics Research Laboratory, School of Electrical and Computer
Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran 14395-515, Iran (e-mail: m.abdol-
hamidi@ece.ut.ac.ir).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LMWC.2008.2007711
1531-1309/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE
Fig 2. Configuration of the proposed amplifier embedded within the SIW.
requires that the amplifier characteristics be measured with re-
spect to its SIW ports. For this purpose, we will use a calibration
technique.
The design procedure of the amplifier is explained in
Section II. The simulation and measurement results for coaxial
input and output ports and calibrated results for SIW ports are
presented in Section III.
II. DESIGN PROCEDURE
As we know, the SIW sidewalls consist of metallic vias.
Hence, only modes can propagate along this waveguide.
The single-mode performance of the SIW can be guaranteed
by choosing the appropriate center-to-center distance of the
sidewalls.
In this design, the utilized substrate is a 20-mil RO4003 with
a loss tangent of 0.0027 and a dielectric constant of 3.55. The
cutoff frequency of the fundamental mode of the designed SIW
is 7.5 GHz. The active component is a NE3210S01 transistor
which is a low-noise HJFET.
Depending on the usage of the amplifier, its design can be
based on maximum power gain, low input and output VSWR,
and gain uniformity. Here, we aim to design an X-band SIW
amplifier with a maximally flat gain and high input and output
return losses in the entire frequency band. To simplify the design
procedure, the amplifier is analyzed as separate building blocks,
as shown in Fig. 3. The effect of the connecting microstrip lines,
RF chokes, and grounding vias are included in the active two-
816 IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 18, NO. 12, DECEMBER 2008
Fig. 3. Building blocks of the proposed amplifier.
Fig. 4. Detailed configuration of the input and output matching circuits of the
amplifier. The parameters of the implemented amplifier are: a = 10:4 mm,
W = 1:2 mm, L = 3:9 mm, L = 0 mm, L = 1:5 mm, D =
2:9 mm, W = 1:2 mm, D = 0:7 mm, W = 1:2 mm, W =
1:2 mm, L = 2:6 mm, L = 1:5 mm, L = 3 mm, D = 1 mm,
W = 1:4 mm, D = 7:5 mm, W = 1:2 mm, all via diameters are
0.8 mm.
port in Fig. 3. The connecting microstrip lines are of a length
of 2.5 mm and their lengths are kept constant during the design
procedure. The full-wave analysis of this two-port is carried out
using ADS Momentum by Agilent. At the transistor terminals,
“internal” ports are used while “single” ports are utilized for the
input and output of the active two-port.
As depicted in Fig. 3, the input and output matching networks
are designed using the SIW technology. Each of these networks
consists of a dc-decoupled transition and two iris-type inductive
discontinuities. Since inductive irises resemble short-circuited
stubs, this configuration is similar to a double-stub matching
network, so one can use the standard design procedure for this
type of matching circuits. In addition, the dc-decoupled transi-
tion also serves as a part of the matching structure. Fig. 4 shows a
more detailed schematic of the matching circuits. The arrange-
ment of the irises, the number of fingers in the dc-decoupled
transitions, and other design parameters like , , , The photograph of the fabricated amplifier is shown in Fig. 5.
, , and , shown in Fig. 4, are among the optimization
parameters of the amplifier. The parameters of the implemented
amplifier are presented in the caption of Fig. 4. Due to filtering
Fig. 5. Photograph of the fabricated amplifier.
Fig. 6. Measured and simulated scattering parameters of the amplifier on
coaxial ports.
property of the transition, there is an optimum number of fin-
gers for which the stability of the amplifier in a wide range of
frequencies is guaranteed. To suppress the power gain outside
the desired frequency band and to prevent the amplifier from
oscillation, the input and output matching networks have been
designed separately with different design goals. Note that the
coaxial-to-SIW transitions shown in Fig. 3 are just for the pur-
pose of measurement and are not a part of the proposed am-
plifier. The transitions are separately optimized to decrease the
unwanted reflections during measurements.
The -parameters of the transitions and the matching net-
works are calculated using HFSS by Ansoft. This along with
the previously mentioned modeling of the active element com-
pletes the -parameters calculation for an end-to-end modeling
of the amplifier.
III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The building blocks of the amplifier introduced in the previous
section are high-lighted in Fig. 5. Fig. 6 shows the measured and
simulated -parameters of the amplifier on the coaxial ports. As
ABDOLHAMIDI AND SHAHABADI: X-BAND SIW AMPLIFIER
Fig. 7. Photograph of the utilized calibration set.
can be seen, using the design strategy explained in Section II,
we have achieved a good agreement between the simulation and
measured results. The amplifier features a 9 dB of gain with less
than 2 dB of ripple and more than 10 dB of input and output
return losses on the coaxial ports nearly in the entire X-band.
To extract the -parameters of the amplifier on its SIW ports,
the calibration set shown in Fig. 7 is employed. It is composed
of two SIW lines of different lengths driven by the previously
mentioned optimized coaxial-to-SIW transitions.
According to the procedure explained in [11], since identical
transitions are used at the input and output ports, the propagation
constant of the SIW and the transmission matrices of the transi-
tions can be determined with only two measurements. Once the
transmission matrices are calculated, the transitions are deem-
bedded from the measured -parameters so that the amplifier
-parameters on its SIW ports are extracted. Fig. 8 shows the
obtained -parameters of the amplifier where port 1 and port
2 refer to input and output SIW ports, respectively. The figure
shows that the proposed SIW gain block has an approximately
uniform gain of 10 dB and input and output return losses of more
than 10 dB in a wide range of the X-band.
IV. CONCLUSION
The presented X-band amplifier features a wideband uniform
gain and appropriate return losses on its SIW ports in the entire
frequency band. In the proposed design, we have utilized SIW-
based matching networks which basically show lower losses
when compared to their microstrip counterparts. The compact
construction of the amplifier turns it to a simple gain block for
any SIW-based circuit.
817
Fig. 8. S -parameters of the amplifier on SIW ports extracted using the calibra-
tion technique.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors wish to thank Dr. D. Busuioc, MASSolutions,
Inc., Waterloo, ON, Canada, for his support of this project.
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