In this paper, the method of locating multiple transmission zeros by the tap-coupling technique is described for bandpass filters (BPFs), using short-ended λ/2 resonators and its application to a duplexer. First, the method of locating the transmission zero using the short-ended λ/2 resonators is examined with various excitation methods. We focus on four types of short-ended λ/2 resonators: the end-coupling type, tap-coupling type, capacitive tap-coupling type and inductive tap-coupling type. Secondly, the BPFs based on the basic characteristics of the respective resonators are proposed and designed on the basis of a general filter theory with narrow band approximation. Lastly, we propose and design new duplexers consisting of the proposed BPFs. The results lead to the conclusion that the basic characteristics of the short-ended λ/2 resonators are useful for realizing a BPF with multiple transmission zeros and a high-performance duplexer fabricated without increasing the number of elements.

Basic characteristics of a short-ended half-wavelength resonator made of a coplanar waveguide (CPW) and their applications to bandpass filters (BPFs) are discussed. The first part of this paper gives the essence for improving out-of-band characteristics of the BPF by describing the basic characteristics of a tap-coupled resonator. Secondly, a new BPF with attenuation poles using the short-ended half-wavelength CPW resonators is proposed and realized. It is confirmed that our methodology is useful for improving out-of-band characteristics of the BPF using the short-ended half-wavelength CPW resonators without complicated filter design.