IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 15, NO.

2, FEBRUARY 2005 107

A Dual-Frequency Wilkinson Power Divider:

For a Frequency and Its First Harmonic
L. Wu, H. Yilmaz, T. Bitzer, and A. Pascht. M. Berroth, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—A Wilkinson power divider operating not only at one

frequency 0 , but also at its first harmonic 2 0 is presented. This
power divider consists of two branches of impedance transformer,
each of which consists of two sections of 1/6-wave transmission-line
with different characteristic impedance. The two outputs are con-
nected through a resistor, an inductor, and a capacitor. All the fea-
tures of a conventional Wilkinson power divider, such as an equal
power split, impedance matching at all ports, and a good isolation
between the two output ports, can be fulfilled at 0 and 2 0 , simul-
taneously.
Index Terms—Dual-frequency, power combiner, power divider, Fig. 1. Dual-frequency Wilkinson power divider.
Wilkinson power divider.

I. INTRODUCTION

T HE Wilkinson power divider and combiner are very im-

portant components for microwave power amplifiers. The
conventional Wilkinson power divider and combiner operate at a
design frequency and all of its odd harmonics [1]. However,
they cannot perform the power division and combining at
and all even harmonics. The dual-band operation, such as the
Fig. 2. Circuit of the power divider for the even-mode analysis.
global system for mobile communications (GSM) and personal
communications systems (PCS) bands for mobile communica-
A. Even-Mode Analysis
tion requires a power divider and combiner operating at a fre-
quency and at the doubled frequency . This letter shows In the case where two signals of the same magnitude and
a dual-frequency Wilkinson power divider which can fulfill a phase (even-mode signals) are applied to ports 2 and 3 of the
power division at both frequencies and . circuit shown in Fig. 1, no current flows through the plane of
symmetry. The circuit is bisected at the plane of symmetry as
II. THEORY AND DESIGN EQUATIONS shown in Fig. 2. Because no current flows through the plane of
symmetry, the circuit elements , , and , which shunt the
A schematic diagram of the proposed Wilkinson power di- ports 2 and 3, can be omitted. The impedance at port 1 is
vider, which realizes the power division at the fundamental fre- doubled on the bisected circuit. For an impedance matching at
quency and its first harmonic , is shown in Fig. 1. Each port 2 the impedance at port 1 must be transformed to
1/4-wave branch of a conventional Wilkinson divider is sub- through the two sections of 1/6-wave transmission-line. To ful-
stituted by two sections of 1/6-wave transmission-line, which fill this transformation at both frequencies and , the char-
have the characteristic impedance of and , respectively. acteristic impedance of these two transmission-lines must be
The output ports are shunted with a parallel connection of a re-
sistor , an inductor , and a capacitor . The power divider is
symmetric and we can use the even- and odd-mode analysis to
determine the circuit parameters for the dual-frequency power
division.

(1)

according to the theory of dual-frequency transformer [2].

Manuscript received April 21, 2004; revised August 11, 2004. The review of With these two characteristic impedances the impedance
this letter was arranged by Associate Editor A. Weisshaar. transformation from at port 2 to at port 1 is naturally
L. Wu, H. Yilmaz, and M. Berroth are with the University of Stuttgart, also fulfilled at and for the even mode, which gives the
Stuttgart 70049, Germany (e-mail: [email protected]).
T. Bitzer and A. Pascht are with Alcatel SEL AG, Stuttgart 70435, Germany. input impedance of at these two frequencies for the power
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LMWC.2004.842848 divider shown in Fig. 1.
1531-1309/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE
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 108 IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 15, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2005

Fig. 3. Circuit of the power divider for the odd-mode analysis.

B. Odd-Mode Analysis
In the case of odd-mode, the two signals applied to port 2 and
3 have the same magnitude but are 180 out of phase, there is
a voltage null along the middle of the circuit shown in Fig. 1.
Thus, we can bisect this circuit by grounding the midplane to
give the network of Fig. 3.
The impedance and at the fundamental frequency
are

(2)

(3)

respectively. Because the port 2 is shunted with a parallel con-

nection of , and 2C, the output impedance at port
2 becomes

(4)

where . For impedance matching to at port 2, we

obtain

(5)
and
(6)

At the impedance , and are

(7)
Fig. 4. Simulation and measurement results of the S -parameters. (a)
Magnitude of S . (b) Magnitude of S .(c) Magnitude of S . (d) Magnitude
(8) of S .

Equations (6) and (10) are therefore two equations for two un-
knowns of L and C, from which we obtain
(9)

respectively. For the same impedance matching at , the fol-

lowing equation must be satisfied besides (5): (11)

(10) (12)
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 WU et al.: DUAL-FREQUENCY WILKINSON POWER DIVIDER 109

III. SIMULATION AND EXPERIMENT There is a good agreement between the simulation and
measurement results. Fig. 4(a) indicates that the input signal
An dual-frequency Wilkinson power divider is designed for is almost equally divided and transmitted to the output ports
1 GHz and 2 GHz. Let be 50 , the design pa- 2 and 3, both at 1 and 2 GHz. A good isolation between the
rameters of the dual-frequency Wilkinson power divider should ports 2 and 3 is also fulfilled at these two frequencies as shown
be in Fig. 4(b). Fig. 4(c) shows that the power divider passes the
1-GHz fundamental signal and its first harmonic very well,
whereas a impedance matching at the output ports is also
realized as shown in Fig. 4(d).

IV. CONCLUSION
nH A novel and elementary dual-frequency Wilkinson power di-
pF vider has been presented, which fulfils all the features of a con-
ventional Wilkinson power divider not only at a design fre-
according to the design equations of (1), (5), (11), and (12). This quency , but also at its first harmonic . The analytic so-
power divider was fabricated on a 0.81-mm-thick RO4003 sub- lution for determination of its components has been derived and
strate, which has a relative permittivity of 3.38 and a conductor been proven by the simulation and the measurement.
thickness of 35 m. The two outputs are connected with a par-
allel circuit consisting of the resistor, the inductor, and the ca- REFERENCES
pacitor. Simulation with models of these lumped components [1] D. M. Pozar, Microwave Engineering, 2nd ed. New York: Wiley, 1998,
and the properties of the real substrate has been implemented pp. 363–368.
[2] C. Monzon, “A small dual-frequency transformer in two section,” IEEE
applying the software ADS 2003 [3]. The measurement and sim- Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 51, no. 4, pp. 1157–1161, Apr. 2003.
ulation results are presented in Fig. 4. [3] ADS, Agilent Technologies, 2003.

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