A quasi-closed form expression for the conductor loss of CPW lines, with an investigation of edge shape effects

In previous work, we used a matched asymptotic technique to investigate the fields near an edge of a finitely conducting strip with nonzero thickness. It was demonstrated that with this asymptotic solution of the fields, the power loss in the region local to the edge could be determined accurately. In this paper, we will show how the accurate representation of the power loss can be used to obtain a closed form expression for the attenuation constant due to conductor loss of coplanar waveguide (CPW) structures. This expression is valid for an arbitrarily shaped edge and any conductor thickness. Results obtained with this expression are compared to and closely agree with both experimental results and other techniques found in the literature. We also investigated conductors with different edge shapes (45/spl deg/ and 90/spl deg/ edges) to explore their effect on the attenuation constant (or loss) of CPW structures.