Distributed vs Lumped Element

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Top Five Advantages of Distributed Element Circuits
 Introduction
A radio frequency transmission line and the components that are created with or on
them can be described as either a set of lumped elements, distributed elements, or
both. For the purposes of this discussion, we will group together the case of pure
lumped and mixed and compared that to a purely distributed circuit, with the goal of
identifying the advantages of the purely distributed circuit.

Lumped Element:
A circuit element is considered “lumped” if its spatial element can be ignored in its
analysis. If the component can be treated as taking up a single point with little effect on
the electrical response, then it is lumped. By this definition, an inductor or capacitor may
not always be a lumped component, depending on the frequency of operation. However,
for the purpose of this comparison, lumped element will mean discrete component.

Lumped element circuits can be solved with ordinary differential equations, as for each
component there is a constant spatial value.

Distributed Element:
A circuit element is considered distributed if its electrical properties are tapered over its
physical length. This, in turn, is dependent on the frequency of operation of the circuit
in which the element lies. As frequency increases, wavelength decreases and once
the wavelength of the operating frequency is within about an order of magnitude of the
lengths of the elements, they become distributed elements.

Since the electrical calculations are based on position in this case, the equations
become 2-variable equations and require partial differential equations to solve.
 Advantage 1: Distributed Element At High Frequency
As operating frequency increases and
operating wavelength decreases, discrete
components begin to have more electrical
impact from distributed attributes. Leads and
terminals become more significant fractions of
a wavelength and act electrically like inductive
lines. Parasitic resistances in components
begin to have a larger impact on loss in series
components and can sink the low frequency
response in shunt components. It becomes
very difficult to design circuits with discrete
components only much above 1GHz. The
wavelength in a TEM (Transverse Electric &
Magnetic) mode circuit is 1 ft. at 1 GHz.
Conversely, distributed element circuits become
much more realizable at frequencies where
lumped element circuits begin to be problematic.
Distributed element circuits often rely on
fractional wavelength series, matching, and
resonating sections. A quarter of a wavelength
in a TEM device is around 30 inches at 100MHz,
which would make a distributed network
unrealizable for most applications, but a quarter
wavelength at 1GHz is only 3 inches and is 0.3
inches at 10GHz. This makes a matching or
resonating structure possible to build within a
footprint that is practical for many mechanical
specifications.
Distributed element circuits have high frequency
limitations where manufacturing tolerances
become too large as a percentage of element
size to reliably form working circuits. For
instance, a quarter-wave matching stub at
10GHz would be about 0.3 inches and a typical
PCB etch tolerance on unplated one-ounce
copper is 0.001”, or +/- 0.34%. This resonator
would then have a real resonance of 9.97-10.03
GHz. But at 100 GHz, that same 0.001” etch
tolerance would be a +/-3.4% change in resonant
frequency and could resonate anywhere from
96.7GHz to 103.3GHz, which is unlikely to be
tolerable per the device electrical spec.
 Advantage 2: Lower Insertion Loss

Discrete capacitors must be packaged for Dielectric loss is based on the carrier material
effective use in an LC circuit. This creates the circuitry is printed on.
parasitic components in addition to the desired
main capacitance. Parasitic resistances create With modern low loss materials in play, dielectric
additional circuit insertion loss. On top of this, losses are dominated by metallic resistive losses
discrete inductors and capacitors have a limited in most distributed element systems. Dielectric
quality factor (Q) which limits the minimum circuit losses can be further lowered by replacing much
insertion loss. of the dielectric in the circuit with air or foam,
lowering the effective dielectric constant. Finally,
The loss path on distributed element circuits is the dominant component of insertion loss in
basically a straight transmission line. Insertion distributed element circuits is the metal.
loss on a distributed circuit can come
from radiation loss, reflection loss,
dielectric loss, and resistive loss. “The dominant component of
Radiation loss can be minimized by
containing the circuit with ground
insertion loss in distributed element
planes, radiation covers, and mode circuits is the metal.”
suppression vias.

Reflection loss is dependent on the

return loss of the device and is not substantial Resistive path loss based on characteristic
for a circuit that is impedance matched well. impedance, overall length, conductivity, and
 Advantage 2: Lower Insertion Loss (Continued)
metal surface topology create the majority of the
insertion loss in the system. 75 ohm transmission
lines are the lowest loss, but have lower power
handling than 50 ohm lines. 30ohm lines have
the most power handling. Circuit length is usually
designed at a minimum, but excessive length
interconnects can be shortened on the design for
lower loss.
A metal with high conductivity will have the
lowest loss. Silver is more conductive than
copper. Any finish involving nickel will have
increased loss due to the ferromagnetic
properties of that metal. Nickel is often used
as a barrier between copper and a finish like
immersion gold or palladium. Metal roughness is
the last factor of distributed element loss.
Different techniques of metal foil creation create
different surface roughnesses. Some very
smooth copper foils can be created, but there is
a snafu – the copper needs to be rough enough
to stick to the dielectric and to any prepreg
materials if the core is to be laminated to another
core in circuit board creation. This would be
common in stripline applications.
Overall, because of the much higher possible Q
and lack of substantial parasitics compared to LC
circuits, distributed elements are normally lower
in insertion loss than their LC counterparts. As
an example, distributed element bandpass filters
often have pass band insertion loss >-0.5dB. In
contrast, typical discrete component bandpass
filters have passband insertion loss of <-1.5dB.
“A metal with high conductivity will
have the lowest loss.”
 Advantage 3: All Circuit Elements Are Tunable

In an LC discrete element circuit, tunability
is limited. In reference to analog tuning, only
wound inductors can be adjusted to any value,
by spreading or compressing the coupling of the
coils. For chip components, like chip inductors
and capacitors, can only be tuned by replacing
the component with
fixture can be used while circuit tuning before
lamination of the cores, which will seal off access
to the circuit. Element impedances, stub lengths,
and ground references can all be altered by
trimming copper foil back on the signal layer, or
adding a metal-doped ink.

“In reference to analog tuning,

another value, or The cover can then
adding an additional be dry fit in place, or
component in series the clamping fixture
or parallel, but this only wound inductors can be closed in the case of
technique restricts
the technician to
adjusted to any value.” buries stripline. This
shows the technician
discrete values. the response of the
circuit before final assembly, or lamination in the
In a distributed circuit, any circuit element is case of buried stripline.
tunable in the analog sense.

With a microstrip or suspended stripline

application, a technician has access to the
circuit elements near the final assembly stage.
For buried stripline applications, a clamping
 Advantage 4: Tunability Through The Cover

When tuning lumped element circuits, the cover
must be removed for each tuning step, then
replaced to check the final response of the
lumped element circuit. This limits the speed at
which the technician can try iterations of tuning
on the circuit. Of course this is also true for the
tuning techniques described above in Advantage
#3 on distributed elements.
This changes the shunt capacitance to ground
of sections of the circuit. Designs often have
many tuning screws so that there are many
tuning combinations available to the technician.
Iterations are very fast, as the assembly is
electrically complete, so after adjusting a screw,
the response is essentially what it would be in

However, once rough tuning is

achieved for distributed element “When tuning lumped element
circuits, specifically those with air circuits, the cover must be
dielectric over the metal layer, such
as microstrip and suspended stripline, removed for each tuning step.”
there is a much faster method for
tuning iterations.
completed form without having to take a step
Threaded holes can be tapped in the cover like replacing a cover. This method takes tuning
allowing the insertions of tuning screws. These iterations down to the seconds each and allows
tuning screws can be adjusted up and down in the budget for hundreds of iterations at low
to change the spacing of specific parts of cost to the supplier.
distributed elements to the above ground plane.
 Advantage 5: Lower Component Count
In a discrete element system, the bill of
materials (BOM) component count can is larger
than that of a distributed element system. A
discrete system needs a printed circuit board
(PCB) as a carrier, then at least one discrete
component per circuit element, but can often
be multiple components per element. These
components must be electrically coupled with
each other during assembly, typically with solder.
Additionally, for mechanical robustness, these
components often need staking, which adds
another item to the BOM.
In a distributed element part, all the discrete
components are replaced by transmission line
sections, most commonly etched into a single
PCB. In this case the BOM is very simple and
can be as simple as 1 component, such as
for a surface mountable stripline PCB with no
shielding requirements. Occasionally, distributed
components have larger BOMs, including
components like RF connectors, solder, metal
“With less components, failure is
drastically reduced.”
chassis, cover, and screws. But even the highest
component count distributed parts have less
components than comparable function discrete
component parts.
There are a multitude of reasons to favor lower
component count designs. There are less
suppliers on the BOM and less chances for a
single component schedule to put the assembly
on hold. There are less components to have
design or manufacturing issues, causing rework,
or even redesign. There is less opportunity
for mistake during assembly that could cause
fallout.
Finally, with less components, failure in
environmental testing, which translates to rate of
field failure, is drastically reduced. Simpler BOMs
drive higher yield.
Derivation of a Distributed Element Low Pass Filter

Following the process outlined in [1], we will now derive a distributed lowpass filter. The
first step is to define the specs and the materials.

• Cutoff Frequency = 2GHz

• Fractional Bandwidth = 0.4, or 800MHz
• Passband Ripple = 0.2dB (this also defines passband return loss at -13dB)
• # of Poles = 5
• Material = Rogers 3003 (3.0 Dk), 0.010” thick, ½ ounce copper clad.

With the specs defined, we now pull the low pass prototype parameters for the desired
filter specs from the lookup tables in [2].

g0 g1 g2 g3 g4 g5 g6
1 1.3394 1.337 2.166 1.337 1.3394 1

We then follow the below equations as defined in [3] to calculate the characteristic
admittances of the filter.
Derivation of a Distributed Element Low Pass Filter

Constants:
pi h
3.14159 2

Parameters:
FBW Z0
0.4 50

Results:
J12/Y0 J23/Y0 J34/Y0 J45/Y0
1.4155 0.9618 0.9618 1.4155

N12 N23 N34 N45

4.3585 4.2329 4.2329 4.3585

Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5
0.0589 0.1243 0.1308 0.1243 0.0589

Y12 Y23 Y34 Y45

0.0283 0.0192 0.0192 0.0283
Derivation of a Distributed Element Low Pass Filter

This yields the admittance values for the open circuited stubs of the low pass filter, as
well as the interconnecting transmission lines between stubs.

From these admittance values, we use the microstrip impedance equations from [4] to
calculate the microstrip widths of each of the sections, based on the material that was
selected, and the microstrip design equations from [5] to determine the guided quarter
wavelength lengths for both the stubs and connecting transmission lines.

The equations used for this process follow:

Where:
Derivation of a Distributed Element Low Pass Filter

Results:
i=1 i=2 i=3 i=4 i=5
Zi 16.9894 8.0461 7.6425 8.0461 16.9894
uStrip Wid (“) 0.1050 0.2435 0.2575 0.2435 0.1050
Eeff 2.2837 2.4107 2.4203 2.4107 2.2837
lambdag/4 0.9770 0.9509 0.9490 0.9509 0.9770

i=1 i=2 i=3 i=4

Zi, i+1 35.3236 51.9870 51.9870 35.3236
uStrip Wid (“) 0.0419 0.0239 0.0239 0.0419
Eeff 2.1837 2.1397 2.1397 2.1837
lambdag/4 0.9991 1.0093 1.0093 0.9991

These values are complete design parameters for the low pass filter. All lengths and
widths are in inches.

References:
[1] A. Agrawal, R. Gupta, and V. Kushwah, “Designing of open stub low pass filter for 1.4GHz,” 5th Int. Conf. on
Comp. Intelligence, pp. 74-77, unk.

[2] G. Matthai, L. Young, and E. Jones, Design of Microwave Filters, Impedance-Matching Networks, and Coupling
Structures, Volume I, pp. 100, Stanford Res. Inst., 1963.

[3] Jia-Shen, G. Hong, and M. Lancaster, “Microstrip Filters for RF/Microwave Applications” (1/e), John Wiley & Sons
Inc., 2001.

[4] Microwaves RF Information for Engineers, https://www.microwaves101.com/encyclopedias/microstrip, Microwaves

101, unk.

[5] Microstrip Wavelength Calculator, https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/tools/microstrip-wavelength-calculator/, unk.

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 About The Author
Mark Stanley
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As Epec’s RF Product Manager, Mark Stanley works directly with customers to ensure
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