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A Method for Determining the Dielectric Constant of Microwave PCB Substrates

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Abstract

This paper presents a simple method for determining the dielectric constant of microwave PCB substrates. In the presented method, a bandpass microstrip filter designed on the PCB substrate with a user-predicted dielectric constant value is implemented for a given center frequency. The simulation results of the designed bandpass filter are obtained by the help of microwave design software; XFDTD®. Experimental results regarding the filter frequency characteristic are accomplished by means of a vector network analyzer. The simulation results of the designed filter are modified to overlap with the experimental ones by varying the dielectric constant value. When the simulation and experimental results are overlapped, the value of dielectric constant is accurately selected. In order to illustrate the validity of proposed method, the dielectric constant values of flame resistant-4 (FR4) substrates are acquired at IEEE 802.11b/g and IEEE 802.11a wireless local area network (WLAN) application frequencies. The results obtained by using the presented method agree with the previous studies in the literature.

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Acknowledgement

This work is supported by Mersin University - Scientific Research Projects with the grant number “BAP-FBE EEM (SY) 2006-4 YL”. The authors would also like to thank to Remcom Inc. for providing the electromagnetic software, XFDTD®.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronics and Computer Education, Faculty of Technical Education, Mersin University, 33480, Tarsus, Mersin, Turkey

    Serhan Yamacli

  2. Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Mersin University, 33343, Ciftlikkoy, Mersin, Turkey

    Caner Ozdemir & Ali Akdagli

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  1. Serhan Yamacli
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  2. Caner Ozdemir
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  3. Ali Akdagli
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Correspondence to Ali Akdagli.

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Yamacli, S., Ozdemir, C. & Akdagli, A. A Method for Determining the Dielectric Constant of Microwave PCB Substrates. Int J Infrared Milli Waves 29, 207–216 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10762-007-9317-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10762-007-9317-6

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