Broadband power dividers
The wideband power divider is based on a Wilkinson network.
Design
For broadband operation the bandwidth of the Wilkinson power divider can be
extended using several “λ/4” transmission line sections. This Wilkinson power
divider is realized with three sections.
The particular shape of the “λ/4” lines, which resemble a
meander, originates from the tradeoff between miniaturization and performance, since the optimum performance is obtained when these two lines are electromagnetically
decoupled, that is, when the even and the odd characteristic impedances of this structure
coincide.
Performance
The divider operates from approximately 300MHz to 2 GHz, but can also be used above 2.5GHz.
Measured performance for the divider.
16-way divider
A 16-way power divider is realized by cascading the structure. The 16-way device is a 4-level tree of 2-way broadband Wilkinson power dividers. The network is realized on RO4003 substrate (0.8 mm thick). The overall size of the 16-way divider without the RF connectors is 31 cm × 25 cm × 3 cm.
