CHARACTERISTIC IMPEDANCE OF COPLANAR WAVEGUIDE

Indexing terms: Waveguides, Microwave devices and components A simplified formula for the characteristic impedance of a coplanar waveguide (CPW) has been proposed. The formulation is based on the determination of the static capacitances between parallel strips and is found to be valid even up to zero gap width.

found to be 0-665, 1-5 and 0-4, respectively. The characteristic impedance is then given by 30 In (bx/ax) 0-665[l-5 - exp [ (2)

- 1)]]

when er eff is equal to (er + l)/2 for a very thick substrate. For a finite thickness of the substrate, ereff may be evaluated using eqn. 7.18 of Reference 6. TaWe 1 COMPARISON O F CHARACTERISTIC IMPEDANCES COMPUTED USING EQN. 2 WITH WEN'S DATA FOR DIFFERENT SUBSTRATE DIELECTRIC CONSTANTS Z o for Computed using eqn. 2 221-60 175-72 15417 136-53 118-4 98-62 7704 5314 27-47 Z o for r = 10 Computed using eqn. 2 94-45 74-92 65-74 58-22 50-49 4205 32-85 22-66 11-71 Z 0 f o r r = 120 Computed using eqn. 2 28-49 22-59 19-82 17-56 15-22 12-68 9-90 6-63 3-53

The characteristic impedance Z o of a coplanar waveguide (CPW) has been derived by Wen 1 using the conformal mapping technique for very thick dielectric substrates. However, the formulation does not yield accurate estimation of the impedance for values of ajbx > 0-6.2 In fact, Z o approaches 40 ft for er = 9-6 when ajbx = 1 instead of being zero.2 Alternative methods of determining the impedances that have been reported3-4 include the finite-difference method, the finite-element method and a method involving Green's function, with the aid of a digital computer. In this letter a formula has been proposed for determining the characteristic impedance of the CPW which is valid up to ax/bx = 1 and the computation is straightforward. The formula is based on quasistatic approximation and essentially determines the static capacitances between parallel strips on dielectric/semi-insulating substrates.
100 90 80 70 60 --50
o

ajbx
01 0-2 0-3 0-4 0-5 0-6 0-7 0-8 0-9

Wen's data 221-5 179-1 153-6 135-2 1200 1070 9518

Wen's data 94-44 76-35 65-50 57-66 51-23 45-61 40-58

Wen's data 28-47 2302 19-75 17-38 15-45 13-75 12-24

40 30 20 100

0-1 02 03

a /b

0U 0-5 06 07 08 09 i i GH3

Fig. 1 Characteristic impedance of CPW

The static capacitances Cx and C2 between the central strip and the ground planes of a CPW are as shown in the inset of Fig. 1, and represent the capacitances in the air region and the dielectric region, respectively. In the zeroth-order quasistatic approximation, the CPW is treated as a transmission line totally immersed in a dielectric with effective dielectric constant e-reff, which is different from er, the relative dielectric constant of the substrate. Under the above assumption, we need only find the capacitance between the two parallel strips. The relevant parameter in the CPW is al/bl, and, since Z o will approach zero for ax/bx = 1, the variation of capacitance with this parameter may be inversely proportional to In (bjax). This type of variation has been established for the capacitance between two freely suspended strips with wide separation. 5 The proximity effect is a function of the spacings S( = by ax) between the strip and the ground planes, and the variation with S/ax is assumed to be exponential in nature. On the basis of the above considerations, the capacitance C may be written in the form

The characteristic impedances for different values of the relative dielectric constants of the substrates (assumed to be very thick) ranging from 1 to 120 computed using the expression given in eqn. 2 have been compared in Table 1 with Wen's data. The variation of Z o with ai/bl has been shown in Fig. 1 along with Wen's data for er = 10. It may be observed from Table 1 and Fig. 1 that there is close agreement between the two sets of values up to ax/bx = 0-6. For values of ajbx exceeding 0-6, a large discrepancy (as expected) may be noted; Z o computed using the proposed formula approaches zero for ajbx tending towards unity. The computed values of Z o have also been found to compare favourably with the experimental data obtained by Riad et a\? To conclude, it may be mentioned that the approach may lead to simple design formulas for CPW directional couplers on dielectric substrates, and may be found suitable for determining the capacitances between the various electrodes of planar diodes and FET structures on semiconducting substrates. Acknowledgment: The author would like to thank Prof. N. B. Chakraborty for his encouragement and support.
D. BHATTACHARYA 4th April 1985

Department of Electronics & Electrical Communication Engineering Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur-721302, India

References
1 WEN, c. P.: 'Coplanar waveguide: a surface strip transmission line suitable for non-reciprocal gyromagnetic device applications', IEEE Trans., 1969, MTT-17, pp. 1087-1090 KURPIS, G. P.: 'Coplanar and slot linesare they here to stay?. International microelectronic symposium, Washington DC, 1972, pp. 3/B/6/1-5 HOUDART, M.: 'Application to broadband microwave integrated circuits'. 6th European microwave conference, Italy, 1976
MOHAMMED, o. A., RIAD, s. M., DAVIS, w. A., and AHMAD, M.: 'Model-

In (bjax)

(1)

ing of thick film striplines using the finite element method', Int. J. Hybrid Microelectron., 1982, 5, pp. 455-459 HARRINGTON, R. F.: Time harmonic electromagnetic fields' (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1961), p. 65
GUPTA, K. c , GARG, R., and BAHL, i. J.: 'Microstrip lines and slot

where Kx, K2 and K3 are appropriate constants, to be evaluated. By comparing the values of Z o obtained through this expression with Wen's data over the range 0 < ax/bx < 0-6, the values of Kx, K2 and K3 have been determined, and are ELECTRONICS LETTERS 20th June 1985 Vol. 21 No. 13

lines' (Artech House, 1979)

RIAD, A. A. R., RIAD, S. M., AHMAD, M., STEPHENSON, F. W., a n d ECKER,

R. A.: Thick film coplanar strip and slot transmission lines for microwave and wideband integrated circuits', Int. J. Hybrid Microelectron., 1982,5, pp. 18-21

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