On-Chip Millimeter-Wave Bandpass Filter Design Using Multi-Layer Modified-Ground-Ring Structure

A design approach for compact on-chip bandpass filters (BPFs) is presented in this work. It exploits a novel multi-layer modified-ground-ring structure (ML-MGRS) with additional ground plates that allows to generate a transmission zero for selectivity increase without extra occupied area. A simplified LC-equivalent circuit model is provided to understand the operational principles of this ML-MGRS concept. Moreover, to validate the experimental feasibility of this transmission-zero-creation technique for on-chip BPFs, a millimeter-wave compact BPF is designed and fabricated in a standard 0.13-µm CMOS technology. The measured results show that the filter exhibits out-of-band power-suppression levels above 40 dB beyond 40 GHz. The center frequency of this filter is 23.5 GHz with a power-insertion-loss level of 3.8 dB, while the input power-matching levels are higher than 10 dB from 19 GHz to 28 GHz. The size of the BPF, excluding the pads, is only 0.06 × 0.284 mm².