Design and Simulation of a 7th Order Chebyshev Low Pass Step Impedance Filter using Synmatrix
This tutorial report provides a detailed guide on the design and simulation of a 7th Order Chebyshev Low
Pass Step Impedance Filter with a cutoff frequency of 2GHz using Synmatrix. The filter is implemented on
FR-4 substrate, a widely used dielectric material in electronic circuits. The report covers the design steps,
simulation process, and an analysis of the results, which includes a comprehensive understanding of the
filter's performance.
1. Introduction:
Microstrip filters play a crucial role in modern communication systems, providing efficient solutions for
signal processing and frequency control. This tutorial focuses on the design and simulation of a 7th Order
Chebyshev Low Pass Step Impedance Filter using Synmatrix for FR-4 substrate.
To design microstrip low pass step impedance, Synmatrix supports two different types of filter synthesis:
Chebyshev and Butterworth. The focus in this tutorial is on Chebyshev filter synthesis. Chebyshev filters
are known for their ability to achieve a steeper roll-off compared to other filter types. The 7th Order
Chebyshev filter allows for a controlled amount of ripple in the passband, which is a key characteristic in
certain communication applications. The user can define the low and high impedance levels of the
structure, and select two options for the first element of the design, either a series inductor or a shunt
capacitor. The user interface of the low-pass step impedance is shown in the following figure.
2. Design Process:
The design process starts with defining input parameters such as filter specifications and frequency range.
The filter specifications are filter order, cutoff frequency, return loss, dielectric material, dielectric
thickness, metal thickness, input and output impedances, and low and high impedance levels. In addition
to Chebyshev or Butterworth realization, the user can also choose the filter starting element to be either
a series inductor or a shunt capacitor. In this tutorial, a 7th order Chebyshev filter with a series inductor as
the first element is designed on a 1.57mm FR4-epoxy dielectric slab. The low and high impedance levels
are 20 Ohms and 120 Ohms respectively. The design goal is to have a cutoff frequency of 2GHz with a 20dB
return loss. Once the input parameters and the design goals are entered, the user can click the “Calculate
All” button to get the preliminary dimensions of the design including widths and lengths.
The calculated dimensions and LC values of the design are shown in the resulting table. By analyzing the
returned dimension values, the user can see the design is symmetric, which means that the first half of
the results are the mirror of the second half. The inductor elements have the same width of 0.4008mm
which corresponds to a high impedance level of 120 Ohms and the capacitor widths are 10.8971mm
corresponding to the low impedance level of 20 Ohms. The total length of the design is 71.9637mm.
In addition to the input section, the user can see the ideal LC and physical length group delay and scattering
parameters of the design. The following figure shows the S11, S21 and group delay response of the
synthesized filter over the frequency range of 0.2GHz to 10GHz.
3. Simulation and Analysis:
The next step of the design process is to simulate the design. The user needs to click on the 3D Modeling
and Circuit Analysis button on the top righthand side of the GUI.
Once clicked, the corresponding page will show the length and width values of the synthesized filter. The
user can change the values or type and proceed to the simulation step.
Users can toggle the top button to see the circuit realization of the filter. They can also use the toggle bars
to change the LC values and see the resulting effect on the S-Parameter plot. (This section will be covered
in another tutorial comprehensively.)
In the following figure, the different options for capacitor and inductor types are shown. The user has
three options for the capacitors and can select between rectangle and circle; for the inductor line, there
are two options such as straight and meander line. In this example, we proceeded with the rectangle-
shaped capacitors and line for the inductors.
Once the user finalizes the parameters, they need to click on the modeling tab and define the HFSS
simulation settings. Synmatrix supports wave and lumped port types and the user can select which plots
to be generated in HFSS. They can also control and hide the variables from Synmatrix. Additionally, mesh
setting can be adjusted based on the user’s requirements. As seen in this tutorial, we have set the
maximum number of passes to 15 with a maximum delta S of 0.001. For the sweeping method we have
used an interpolation. The frequency range is set the same as the synthesis range and it is from 0.2GHz to
10GHz.
After completing the changes to the settings, users can click on “Construct Model” and the following 3D
geometry model will be automatically created in HFSS.
The next step of the design process is to simulate the constructed model to compare the simulation results
and the algorithm. For this purpose, the user needs to click the “Run Simulation” button to start running
the simulation in HFSS. Once the simulation is done, the results will be automatically passed to Synmatrix
and the user can see both the algorithm and simulation results in the S-Parameter plot. As illustrated in
the following figure, the simulation and algorithm results are in good agreement.
