A Three-Way Reconfigurable Power Divider/Combiner

In this paper, a three-way reconfigurable power divider/combiner is proposed based on novel switch element with matching network (SEMN) and reconfigurable impedance transformer network (RITN). A good matching performance and a high isolation of the SEMN with one p-i-n diode can be obtained by the parasitic inductance and reverse capacitance of the p-i-n diode involved in matching circuits. With different parameters of one p-i-n diode under forward bias and reverse bias, the reconfigurable impedance matching can be obtained by the RITN with a simple structure. By using four RITNs and nine SEMNs, the three-way reconfigurable power divider/combiner can provide seven different states in the three-path mode, the two-path mode, and the single-path mode. For verification, a 5-GHz three-way reconfigurable power divider/combiner is designed and fabricated. In the three-path mode, measured insertion losses from port 1 to transmission ports (port 2, port 3, and port 4) are less than 0.74 dB and the isolations between transmission ports are higher than 32.1 dB. In the two-path mode with three states, the measured insertion losses are less than 0.93 dB; the isolations between transmission ports, transmission ports and isolation ports, and port 1 and isolation ports are higher than 27.5, 35.1, and 30.5 dB, respectively. In the single-path mode with three states, the measured insertion losses are less than 1.13 dB; the measured isolations between transmission ports and isolation ports are higher than 28.8 dB, and the isolations between port 1 and isolation ports are higher than 28.2 dB at the design frequency.