IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 58, NO.

5, MAY 2010 1213

Compact Dual-Band Branch-Line and Rat-Race

Couplers With Stepped-Impedance-Stub Lines
Kuo-Sheng Chin, Member, IEEE, Ken-Min Lin, Yen-Hsiu Wei, Tzu-Hao Tseng, and Yu-Jie Yang

Abstract—This study constructs stepped-impedance-stub lines

for a dual-band branch-line coupler design with improved design
flexibility. The proposed structure demonstrates dual-band perfor-
mance and a compact size due to additional stepped-impedance
stubs to branches. The developed synthesis method has two de-
grees of freedom which can be exploited to miniaturize circuit size
and/or replace impractical impedances with more realizable ones.
Observations also show the advantage of a wide-range realizable
frequency ratio of dual bands. The current work fabricates three Fig. 1. (a) Configuration of a conventional T-shaped line. (b) Proposed dual-
experimental dual-band branch-line couplers, including a two-sec- band stepped-impedance-stub branch line. (c) Equivalent dual-band 90 line.
tion coupler, and achieves a size reduction up to 21.7%, compared
with conventional structures. The measured results validate good
dual-band performance at 2.4/5.8 GHz with enhanced bandwidths
up to 21% and 12%, respectively. This research also successfully
Research has proposed various planar structures for a
applies the proposed circuit to synthesize a dual-band rat-race cou- dual-band branch-line coupler design. One study [11] added
pler. a pair of cross coupling branches to introduce more design
freedom. Lin et al. replaced branches with the com-
Index Terms—Dual band, branch-line coupler, rat-race coupler,
stepped impedance, two-section coupler. posite right-/left-handed metamaterial transmission line [12].
However, the losses caused by lumped elements should be
considered. The study achieved wider operating bandwidth
I. INTRODUCTION by adding additional microstrip stubs to branches [14]. Using
the three-branch-line stretched structure implements the dual
RANCH-LINE couplers offer a 90 phase difference and band and enhances bandwidth [15], requiring a third branch
B equal/unequal power splitting, which is useful in various
microwave circuits, such as balanced mixers, data modulators,
to the conventional branch line in coupler synthesis. Cheng
and Wong described a dual-band rat-race coupler based on
phase shifters, and power combined amplifiers. The traditional the tri-section branch line [16]. The structure using two shunt
design of branch-line couplers operates only at single band. susceptances attached to the two ends of a stepped-impedance
Such couplers suffer from disadvantages of narrow bandwidth line was presented and validated in [17]. Recently, T-shaped
and large size. In modern communication systems, the need lines were introduced for size reduction [18], broad bandwidth
for dual-band operation, wide bandwidth, and compactness im- [19], and dual-band operation [20]–[22]. The T-shaped line,
poses new requirements. To fulfill these requirements, the con- shown in Fig. 1(a), consists of a signal path tapped with a
ventional branch line coupler must be redesigned. uniform stub at its center, leading to great improvement in
Previously published reports on bandwidth enhancement of coupler performance. Designing dual-band couplers with more
branch-line couplers, include using a multisection cascaded realizable impedances, arbitrary frequency ratio, and a compact
structure [1]–[6], a parallel-strip branch line with a swap at size is an ongoing challenge.
its center [7], and the elliptic patch [8]. However, achieving This work proposes stepped-impedance-stub branches for
more than two sections in the microstrip is difficult because both dual-band operation and compactness. Section II derives
the outside branch lines typically require very high impedances the design equations of stepped-impedance-stub lines and finds
exceeding the upper limits of a practical realization. Thus, two degrees of freedom for determining circuit dimensions.
novel circuit structures which reduce impedance levels are The degrees of freedom can be used to reduce circuit size
important for enhancing bandwidth. and/or replace high-impedance lines of couplers so that they
may be physically constructed by microstrips. Section III
develops the synthesis methods for single-section/two-section
Manuscript received September 21, 2009; revised December 14, 2009. First
published April 19, 2010; current version published May 12, 2010. This work
branch-line couplers and rat-race couplers. Section IV presents
was supported in part by the National Science Council, Taiwan, under Grant the experimental results to demonstrate the proposed circuit
NSC 97-2221-E-182-015 and in part by Chang Gung University, Taiwan, under structure. Finally, Section V draws conclusions.
Contract UERPD280061 and the High Speed Intelligent Communication Re-
search Center.
The authors are with the Department of Electronic Engineering, Chang Gung
II. ANALYSIS OF THE DUAL-BAND BRANCH LINE
University, Kwei-Shan, Taoyuan 333, Taiwan (e-mail: [email protected]. Designers typically construct traditional 3-dB branch-line
tw).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
couplers using branches with impedances of 50
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. and 50 . These branches have an electrical length
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMTT.2010.2046064 of 90 at a single frequency that must be replaced for
0018-9480/$26.00 © 2010 IEEE
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1214 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 58, NO. 5, MAY 2010

a dual-band operation. Fig. 1(b) presents the proposed

stepped-impedance-stub line comprising a signal path
tapped with a stepped-impedance stub of and
at its center. The stub line performs an equivalent electrical
length of 90 and desired branch impedances at two operating
frequencies. If , it becomes a T-shaped line, as
shown in Fig. 1(a). Three advantages of the proposed structure
attribute to its increased nonuniform impedances, resulting in
a compact size, wide range of realizable frequency ratio, and
more realizable impedances.
Fig. 1(b) shows as the input impedance looking into the
section and derived as

Fig. 2. Solutions to (6) for  of stepped-impedance-stub lines (r =

(1) 2:417; R = 0:2, and U = 1:5).
The composite matrix of the stepped-impedance-stub
branch line is obtained by multiplying the matrices of
each cascade component in Fig. 1(b) to give (5b)

For a compact dual-band branch line, should be selected

in (5).
Two degrees of freedom exist due to six unknowns
(2) ( , and ) but only four equations (4a)–(4d)
are available. Thus, the impedance ratio and the
Since the proposed dual-band branch line acts as a 90 line at electrical length ratio are chosen as free variables to
and shown in Fig. 1(c), where and are center fre- solve (4a)–(4d) simultaneously. The solutions of transcendental
quencies of the first and second bands, respectively, the corre- equations (4a)–(4d) are not unique even though the parameters
sponding matrix is given by and are fixed, as explained in the following. Substituting
(5a)–(5b), , and into (4a) and (4b)
eliminates , leading to a single transcendental equation
(3)

(6)
where is the characteristic admittance of the 90 line.
Equating the matrices of (2) and (3) yields
Equation (6) only has a single variable since the constants
, and can be arbitrarily chosen. A graphical method plots
(4a)
the graph of each side of (6), using their intersecting points to
find solutions. With , and as
(4b) examples (used to synthesize the two-section branch-line cou-
pler in Section III-B), the solutions to (6) are indicated by dots
and (4c) and (4d), shown at the bottom of this page, where in Fig. 2. has multiple solutions as shown in Fig. 2, and
denotes the frequency ratio of the second band to the first , 44.74 , 58.21 , and 93.44 are the first four so-
band, and , and are all specified at . The value of lutions which have respective , and . Obviously, the
is decided according to the required dual band specification. shortest is desired for size reduction if its corresponding
Moreover, (4a)–(4d) can be simplified to solve for and as and are realizable as well. However, the longer may be
better for reducing the impedances and . This underdeter-
mined feature is very helpful in reducing size and/or satisfying
(5a)
the high-branch-impedance requirement by enabling a suitable

(4c)

(4d)

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CHIN et al.: COMPACT DUAL-BAND BRANCH-LINE AND RAT-RACE COUPLERS WITH STEPPED-IMPEDANCE-STUB LINES 1215

Fig. 5.  of the dual-band stepped-impedance-stub branch line versus U .

Fig. 3. Schematic of the dual-band single-section branch-line coupler with

stepped-impedance-stub lines.

Fig. 6.  of the proposed 50- stepped-impedance-stub branch line normal-

ized with  of the conventional T-shaped line.

lines where their circuit dimensions can be determined by

solving (4a)–(4d). Size reduction is better using in (4c)
and in (4d), which gives and phase difference
between output ports for the first and second bands, respec-
tively. Fig. 4(a) and (b) plots and of the dual-band 50-
and 50 - stepped-impedance-stub branch lines versus
for various , respectively, when the dual 2.4-/5.8-GHz
bands are required for a WLAN. Here, Fig. 4
does not include since it can be easily calculated using (5).
Fig. 4 shows that both and monotonically increase as
increases. The smaller has higher impedances of and .
Typically, only an impedance of 20–120 can be realized using
Fig. 4. Z and Z of the dual-band stepped-impedance-stub line versus
p R. the microstrip fabrication process, so the range of is limited
(a) 50- line. (b) 50= 2- line. to for the 50- branch, while the value of
depends on the chosen . When , which is the case of the
T-shaped line, the impedances are 252.75 that
combination of and to be chosen. The following sections are not realizable. A similar situation applies to the 50 -
explain this advantage according to the specified and . branch with a limited range of .
Fig. 1(b) presents that and notably
III. DUAL-BAND BRANCH-LINE AND RAT-RACE COUPLERS correspond to the length and width of stepped-impedance-stub
lines. From (5a), depends only on and cannot be easily
A. Single-Section Dual-Band Branch-Line Couplers reduced since does not vary with and . Thus, the pro-
Here, we develop the synthesis method of the dual-band posed stepped-impedance-stub line has the same width as the
branch-line coupler with equal power division. Fig. 3 plots T-shaped line, i.e., . However, can be reduced to
the proposed coupler schematic with stepped-impedance-stub miniaturize circuit size.
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1216 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 58, NO. 5, MAY 2010

Fig. 8. Variation of bandwidth with R and U .

vertical length of the T-shaped line with respect to . Fig. 6

presents that the normalized is always less than one, reducing
to 0.79 when , revealing that the proposed structure
has reduced size. A large reduction ratio for couplers can be
achieved if a small impedance ratio is chosen.
Fig. 7(a) and (b) indicates the design values of dual-band
50- and 50 - branches, respectively. When a frequency
ratio is specified, it is easy to find the related dimensions
, and from Fig. 7. Substituting and
into (5) also yields , and 38.12
and 26.96 for dual-band 50- and 50 - branches, re-
spectively. The detail dimensions are listed in Section IV.
Fig. 7 and (5) are very useful for synthesizing dual-band cou-
plers. If the desired is too high or low, and may become
unrealizable. Therefore, Fig. 7 provides various combinations of
to support a wide achievable range of .
Fig. 7 also plots the impedance of the T-shaped line for com-
parison, where is not shown. The T-shaped line pro-
vides a very limited realizable range of for
the 50 line and for the line, since it
has no degree of freedom to change and . Notably, the pro-
posed structure has lower impedances than T-shaped lines for a
fixed . This situation becomes more obvious as the required
branch impedance becomes higher, helping to alleviate the dif-
ficulty resulting from impractical high impedances.
Fig. 8 investigates the variation of bandwidth with and .
Fig. 7. Design curves of Z ; Z ;  , and  . (a) Dual-band 50-
p branch line. Since compactness and realizable impedances are the most im-
(b) Dual-band 50= 2- branch line. portant considerations, only the ranges and
are examined. The fractional bandwidths do
Fig. 5 plots as a function of for various . The line not change significantly with and and are 11%–13% and
(T-shaped line) correspond to a constant electrical length 4%–7% for the first and second bands, respectively.
of . As Fig. 5 shows, is always less than
105.36 when , validating the length is reduced be- B. Two-Section Dual-Band Branch-Line Couplers
cause of the increased nonuniform impedances. The curves of In advanced communication systems, branch-line couplers
drop as and decline, reaching their lowest point around not only require dual-band operation but also desire wide band-
. Since a small may be associated with width. However, the single-section dual-band coupler only has
unrealizable impedance values, the optimal values of and a very narrow bandwidth, especially 4%–7% at the high pass-
of stepped-impedance-stub branch lines must be considered to- band. Fortunately, using multiple cascading sections improves
gether to minimize and to ensure realizing the impedances the coupler. Since the proposed dual-band lines can be designed
and . The curves in Figs. 4 and 5 reveal that separately, the easy way for a two-section coupler design is to
and (0.3, 0.2) are suitable for synthesizing dual-band find required branch impedances first from the single-band syn-
50- and 50 - branches, respectively. Fig. 6 plots of thesis equations and then replace each with the corresponding
the 50- stepped-impedance-stub branch line, normalized to the dual-band stepped-impedance-stub line. Fig. 9(a) shows the
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CHIN et al.: COMPACT DUAL-BAND BRANCH-LINE AND RAT-RACE COUPLERS WITH STEPPED-IMPEDANCE-STUB LINES 1217

Fig. 9. Configurations of: (a) a conventional two-section branch-line coupler

(single band) and (b) the proposed dual-band two-section branch-line coupler
with stepped-impedance stubs.

single-band two-section branch-line coupler with uniform

impedances of , and and electrical lengths of . Fig. 10. (a) Z and Z of the dual-band 120.7- stepped-impedance-stub line
Using the even–odd-mode analysis technique, the current versus R. (b)  of the 120.7- stepped-impedance-stub line versus U .
work determines characteristic impedances by
TABLE I
(7a) DESIGN TABLE OF DUAL-BAND 120.7- STEPPED-IMPEDANCE-STUB
LINES VERSUS r
(7b)

where is the coupling coefficient of two output ports. The

value of is chosen arbitrarily, and, generally,
gives maximum bandwidth [1]. When equal power division is
required , from (7), we obtain 120.7 and
50 . For such a high impedance of 120.7
, the required of the T-shaped line is 610.14 (for
) which is not realizable in practice. If
is still chosen for the proposed dual-band line, then will be
290 , also exceeding the fabrication limit. Fortunately, the so- TABLE II
lutions of the transcendental equations (4a)–(4d) are not unique, DESIGN VALUES FOR BRANCHES WITH HIGH IMPEDANCES
120–155 (r = 2:417)
as mentioned in Section II, allowing the choice of different so-
lutions for more realizable impedances at the cost of longer .
In Section III-A, the goal is to find the shortest with the
smallest . However, we now change the priority to sacrifice
slightly to find a more realizable and . Therefore, the value
of increases to find suitable solutions of (4a)–(4d). Fig. 10(a)
plots and of the 120.7- stepped-impedance-stub branch
line versus for . Fig. 10(a) shows
20 when . These curves indicate different impedance
varying with , compared with Fig. 4. In our studies, when
, the tendency reverses and the bigger corresponds
to higher impedance. Therefore, is chosen for con-
sidering impedance realization. Fig. 10(b) plots as a func- Fig. 10(a) and (b) concludes that have re-
tion of , in which the smaller and obtain a shorter . alizable impedances and a shorter . The calculated results
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1218 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 58, NO. 5, MAY 2010

Fig. 11. Configuration of the proposed dual-band rat-race coupler.

Fig. 13. Experimental results of coupler with R = 0:3 and U = 0:4.

(a) Measured jS j. (b) Simulated and measured S 0 S .

Table I lists the circuit dimension for the dual-band 120.7-

lines for various . Different combinations of are ar-
ranged to support a wide achievable range of from 1.7 to
2.7. As mentioned above, the proposed circuit structure offers
design flexibility in realizing impractical branch impedances.
Table II lists the design values of stepped-impedance-stub lines
for branches with high impedances (120–155 ) which may be
required in three-section (143 in [2]) and more multisection
branch-line coupler designs.

C. Dual-Band Rat-Race Couplers

The rat-race hybrid ring is another widely used coupler for

providing 0 and 180 phase shift outputs, consisting of several
sections between ports 1–4 around the top half of the ring.
The bottom half of the ring is 3 in length between ports 2
and 4. For equal power division, the impedance of the entire ring
Fig. 12. (a) Simulated and measured jS j of dual-band branch-line coupler is fixed at or 70.7 for a 50- system. Because the pro-
with (R; U ) = (0:2; 0:2) and (0.3, 0.2). (b) Photograph of coupler . posed stepped-impedance-stub line is capable of providing 90
electrical length and desired impedances at two center frequen-
cies, we also can use it to design dual-band rat-race couplers
are 21.2 106 87.32 , and for compactness. The current work determines circuit dimen-
58.21 . Fig. 2 notes that 58.21 is not the shortest solution sions of the dual-band 70.7- lines in the same way as discussed
of (6) because we sacrifice to relax the high-impedance re- above and does not repeat them again for purposes of concise-
quirement. Fig. 9(b) plots the proposed two-section dual-band ness. Fig. 11 plots the configuration of the dual-band rat-race
branch-line couplers with stepped-impedance stubs. coupler with stepped-impedance stubs.
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CHIN et al.: COMPACT DUAL-BAND BRANCH-LINE AND RAT-RACE COUPLERS WITH STEPPED-IMPEDANCE-STUB LINES 1219

TABLE III
BANDWIDTHS OF THE THREE EXPERIMENTAL DUAL-BAND
BRANCH-LINE COUPLERS

on an Arlon 25N substrate with a dielectric constant of 3.38

and a thickness of 0.762 mm. Both couplers are designed
to operate at 2.4/5.8 GHz, except they use different pairs of
for comparison. The circuit dimensions of the 50-
branch of coupler are 23.8 14
119 69.5 38.12 , and 105.36 ,
with , and, for the 50 - branch,
32 14.5 106 74 26.96 ,
and 105.36 , with . In practice, the
discontinuity effects at branch corners and stepped-impedance
stubs may require optimizing electrical lengths of branches.
Fig. 12(a) plots simulated and measured results of coupler .
The performance clearly shows the existence of two passbands
centered at 2.36 and 5.7 GHz, respectively. The simulated and
measured results agree closely with each other. Detailed data
reveal that the measured insertion losses of the through and cou-
pled ports are 3.87 and 3.41dB with a phase difference of
90 at 2.36 GHz and 4.374 and 4.074 dB with a phase dif-
ference of 89 at 5.7 GHz, respectively. Both and
are less than 38 dB at the first center frequency and 29 dB at
the second center frequency. If a 0.5-dB magnitude imbalance
is used to define the usable frequency range, then the measured
bandwidths of the first and second bands are 11% and 5%, re-
spectively. Fig. 12(b) displays a photograph of coupler . The
height of the 50- stepped-impedance-stub line is 82.5 . If
using the T-shaped line in design, then 105.36 . Fig. 6
exhibits that the proposed coupler achieves a size reduction of
21.7%.
The other coupler is designed with and .
Fig. 13(a) shows experimental results of coupler , in which the
circuit dimensions of 50 - branch are 22.85
25.83 76.17 64.58 26.96 , and
105.36 . The dimensions of 50- branch are
32.31 25.83 107.7 64.58 38 ,
Fig. 14. (a) Simulated and measured S parameters of two-section coupler . and 105.36 . The insertion losses are 3.57 dB
(b) jS j 0 jS j. (c) S 0 S . (d) Photograph of fabricated coupler .
and 3.62 dB at 2.4 GHz and 4.06 dB and
4.23 dB at 5.74 GHz, respectively. The measured
bandwidths of dual bands are 13% and 7%, which are slightly
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
wider than coupler . Coupler also performs better than the
other couplers in [12], [14], and [21] in terms of bandwidth.
A. Single-Section Dual-Band (2.4/5.8 GHz) Branch-Line
Fig. 13(b) plots the phase difference between the coupled and
Couplers
through outputs of the two passbands. A phase difference of
To demonstrate the design concept, this study fabricates between these two ports is maintained over a wide
two dual-band signal-section branch-line couplers and bandwidth of the dual bands.
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1220 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 58, NO. 5, MAY 2010

branch. Fig. 14(a) shows the results of coupler with en-

hanced dual bandwidths of 21% and 12%. The measured
is shifted to 2.23 GHz, and is shifted to 5.58 GHz. The
measurement shows that, at 2.23 GHz, 3.73 dB,
4.11 dB, and 91.3 , and, at
5.58 GHz, 4.54 dB, 4.97 dB, and
90.9 . Fig. 14(b) and (c) plots the magni-
tude imbalance and phase difference, respectively. Fig. 14(d)
shows the photograph of coupler . Table III summarizes the
bandwidths of couplers , and .

C. Dual-Band (2.4/5.2 GHz) Rat-Race Couplers

This study designs the experimental dual-band rat-race cou-
pler to operate at 2.4 and 5.2 GHz . Fig. 15(a)
plots the simulated and measured responses of . The mea-
sured results are dB, dB,
dB, and dB at 2.34 GHz, and
dB, dB, dB, and
dB at 5 GHz. Fig. 15(b) shows the phase differ-
ences and . The detailed data show
that the phase deviations are 1.12 and and
are 181.48 and at 2.34 GHz and 5 GHz,
respectively. Fig. 15(c) shows the photograph of the fabricated
dual-band rat-race coupler.
Although the experimental branch-line and rat-race couplers
are all designed with equal power division, designers can also
apply the proposed circuit structure and synthesis method to ar-
bitrary power divisions, according to the required characteristic
impedances of branches.

V. CONCLUSION
This study presents a novel circuit structure of dual-band
couplers. The proposed stepped-impedance-stub branch line
gives engineers more design flexibility in coupler synthesis
because its synthesis equations have two degrees of freedom.
A detailed comparison of the proposed circuit with conven-
tional structures is carried out. The current work achieves
three advantages of compact size, wide range of realizable
frequency ratio, and more realizable characteristic impedances
by choosing a suitable pair in the synthesis formulas.
For multisection couplers, the high branch impedance levels
are always required. The tradeoff between size and realizable
impedances is discussed in detail, and the associated design
values are provided. Four experimental dual-band circuits, in-
cluding two single-section branch-line couplers, a two-section
branch-line coupler, and a rat-race coupler are demonstrated
with good performance.
Fig. 15. (a) Simulated and measured S parameters of the dual-band rat-race
coupler. (b) S 0 S and S 0 S . (c) Photograph of the rat-race
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IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 52, no. 11, pp. 2458–2463, Yen-Hsiu Wei was born in Chiayi, Taiwan. He re-
Nov. 2004. ceived the B.S. degree in electronic engineering from
[15] C. Collado, A. Grau, and F. D. Flaviis, “Dual-band planar quadra- Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan, and is cur-
ture hybrid with enhanced bandwidth response,” IEEE Trans. Microw. rently working toward the M.S. degree in electronic
Theory Tech., vol. 54, no. 1, pp. 180–188, Jan. 2006. engineering at Chang Gung University.
[16] K.-K. M. Cheng and F.-L. Wong, “Dual-band rat-race coupler design His research interest is the design of compact mi-
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Mar. 2007.
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using T-sections,” J. Microw., Optoelectron. Electromagn. Appl., vol. His research interests include microwave circuit
7, no. 2, pp. 83–90, Dec. 2008. and filter design.
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2, pp. 106–108, Feb. 2007. tromagnetism Application Innovation Competition,
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pler,” Microw. Opt. Technol. Lett., vol. 49, no. 12, pp. 3011–3014, Dec.
2007.

Kuo-Sheng Chin (S’05–M’06) received the B.S.

Yu-Chien Yang was born in Taichung, Taiwan. She
degree in electrical engineering from Chung Cheng
is currently a Senior Student with the Department
Institute of Technology, Taoyuan, Taiwan, in 1986,
of Electronic Engineering, Chang Gung University,
M.S.E.E. degree from Syracuse University, Syracuse,
Taoyuan, Taiwan.
NY, in 1993, and the Ph.D. degree in communication
Her research interest is the design of microwave
engineering from National Chiao Tung University,
devices.
Hsinchu, Taiwan, in 2005.
Ms. Yang was one of the members of the student
From 1986 to 2005, he was with the Chung
team that won first place at the 2009 National Elec-
Shan Institute of Science and Technology, Taoyuan,
tromagnetism Application Innovation Competition,
Taiwan, as a Research Assistant, becoming an
Taiwan.
Assistant Scientist and then an Associate Scientist.

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