FULLY EMBEDDED MICRO-TRIPLEXER INTO PCB WITH BaTiO₃ FILM

ABSTRACT

In this paper, compact passive type triplexer was newly designed and fabricated for US-CDMA handset applications. The newly designed triplexer circuit was comprised of a diplexer, parallel resonant circuit, GPS SAW BPF, and its impedance matching circuit. It was realized by embedding all passive components into multi-layered PCB substrate with BaTiO₃ organic composite film. Although the number of passive components to comprise the proposed triplexer and its size were dramatically reduced, its performance characteristics were much improved. It exhibited the measured insertion losses of −0.4 dB, −1.7 dB, and −1.3 dB and the measured isolation characteristics of −10 dB, −24 dB, and −21 dB at DCN, GPS, US-PCS band, respectively. The simulated and measured performance characteristics of fabricated triplexer were well agreed. The fabricated triplexer has a 4.0 × 3.0 mm² size. Since it has excellent performance characteristics, small size/volume, and low cost, it can be directly applied for US-CDMA handsets.

Keywords:

• triplexer
• front-end module
• printed-circuit board
• BaTiO₃ composite organic film
• embedded passive circuit
• organic packaging substrate
• US-CDMA system

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was supported by Intelligent RF Engineering Research Center (ERC) of Korea Ministry of Science and Technology. Fabrication was carried out at Daeduck electronics Co. Ltd in Korea. The authors acknowledge MiNDaP group members for their technical supports and discussions.