A sharp roll-off microstrip low-pass filter with excellent near- and far-stopband suppression

A microstrip low-pass filter with sharp roll-off and excellent suppression in both the near- and far-stopbands is proposed. The design incorporates a stepped-impedance hairpin-type resonator (SIHTR) along with a pair of asymmetric T-shaped resonators (TSRs). While the SIHTR offers a tunable 3 dB cutoff frequency and roll-off rate (ROR), its near-stopband suppression degrades at higher ROR values. To address this limitation and further extend the stopband bandwidth, two TSRs with distinct resonant frequencies are positioned at the input and output ports. By fixing their resonant frequencies and fine-tuning their stopband characteristics, the overall suppression bandwidth and stopband attenuation are significantly enhanced. The proposed filter features a compact layout, high selectivity, a wide stopband, and excellent out-of-band suppression performance. Measured results demonstrate an insertion loss of less than 1 dB and a return loss of greater than 15.1 dB in the passband from DC to 7.5 GHz. The 3 dB cutoff frequency is 8.23 GHz, and the transition band is 34.58 dB/GHz from -3dB to -40dB. In the stopband, attenuation exceeds 31.5 dB across the frequency range from 9.17 GHz to 40 GHz.