Design of 600-W Low-Loss Ultra-Wideband Ferriteless Balun

Abstract

We present the development of a low-loss, high-power, and ferriteless balun that operates over 0.1-1.6 GHz bandwidth. The proposed balun employs a novel compensated circuit, a single quarter-wave semirigid coaxial cable and an on-board inductor on a thermoset ceramic board to achieve high power and ultrawide bandwidth performance. The experimental results show that the balun achieves a measured average insertion loss of less than 0.5 dB and return loss of better than 10 dB from 100 MHz to more than 1.6 GHz. Within the measured bandwidth, the amplitude and phase imbalances are within ±1 dB and ±5°, respectively. Multiphysics analysis and high-power measurements demonstrate that the balun can handle more than 600 W and above at 1.6 GHz. To the best of our knowledge, the reported balun has the highest measured power handling capability per the largest 16:1 bandwidth ratio to date.