IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 52, NO.
5, MAY 2004
Implementation of First-Order and Second-Order
Microwave Differentiators
Ching-Wen Hsue, Senior Member, IEEE, Lin-Chuan Tsai, and Kuo-Lung Chen
Abstract—Simple and accurate formulations are employed
to represent discrete-time infinite impulse response processes of
both first- and second-order differentiators in the -domain.
These formulations, in conjunction with the representations of
transmission-line elements in the -domain, lead to transmis-
sion-line configurations that are eligible for wide-band microwave
differentiators. Both the first- and second-order differentiators
in microstrip circuits are implemented to verify this method.
The experimental results are in good agreement with simulation
values.
Index Terms—Equal-length line, microwave differentiator,
-transforms.
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE differentiator is a very useful tool to determine and
estimate time derivatives of a signal. It has been used ex-
tensively in many areas, such as image processing, speech sys-
tems, and digital control. In radars, the velocity and accelera-
tion of objects are computed from position measurements using
differentiators [1]. In biomedical engineering applications, it is
often necessary to compute higher order derivatives of biomed-
ical data. The differentiators are mainly implemented in cir-
cuits for low-speed applications. Thus, the implementation of
differentiators for high-frequency applications has been largely
ignored.
Various methods have been developed to design both discrete
finite impulse response (FIR) and infinite impulse response
(IIR) differentiators [2]–[7]. Al-Alaoui [2] used Simpson’s rule
to develop a stable second-order recursive differentiator. Tseng
[3] studied a fractional-order FIR differentiator by solving
linear equations of Vandermonde form. In order to develop
a wide-band differentiator, Khan and Ohba [6] employed the
central difference approximations of the derivative of a function
to obtain a maximally linear differentiator. An important aspect
of the previous investigation is that the exploration focused on
the improvement of linearity over a wide frequency band.
Most of the differentiator studies thus far elaborated on
discrete-time signal processing (DSP) techniques for the
applications in low-frequency microchips. In particular, many
-domain formats of transfer functions have been obtained
to represent the characteristics of a differentiator. In this
Manuscript received September 23, 2003; revised January 6, 2004. This work
was supported by the National Science Council, R.O.C., under Grant NSC92-
2213-EO11-012.
The authors are with the Department of Electronic Engineering, National
Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan 106, R.O.C.
(e-mail: cwh@et.ntust.edu.tw).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMTT.2004.827015
0018-9480/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
1443
paper, we present the scattering characteristics of equal elec-
trical-length transmission lines in the -domain [8], [9]. As
a result, the transmission-line configuration can emulate the
characteristics of the differentiator developed in a DSP study,
and the operating frequency band of a differentiator is, thus,
extended further into the microwave range. Both first- and
second-order differentiators are implemented with microstrip
lines, of which the operating frequency is determined by the
physical length of each line section. It is, therefore, plausible
to fabricate differentiators having operating frequencies larger
than 10 GHz. The close agreement between theoretical values
and experimental results further validates the proposed scheme.
It is pertinent to point out that the transmission lines considered
here are assumed to be both lossless and dispersionless. In
particular, the dispersion effect between microstrip lines of
different widths over a wide bandwidth is neglected for the
current consideration.
II. DISCRETE-TIME DIFFERENTIATORS
It is well known that the operation of a time derivative of a
signal is represented by a complex-frequency variable in the
Laplace transform representation. Neglecting the loss factor, the
complex-frequency variable is equal to , i.e., , where
is the signal angular frequency. As a result, a differentiator
is a high-pass filter and the amplitude of its system function
increases linearly as the signal frequency increases. We consider
a transformation relating the complex-frequency variable and
the discrete-time variable in the -domain as follows:
(1)
where is a normalization constant, is a real constant, and
represents a unit of time delay. Physically, is the sam-
pling time interval in the DSP study. If is set equal to one, the
transformation in (1) is called a bilinear transformation, which
is widely used in converting analog prototypes to discrete-time
prototypes [10]. When the frequency response of the differen-
tiator is concerned, the parameter in (1) is replaced with the
following relation:
(2)
where is the frequency angle and . The value
of strongly affects the linearity of the transformation in (1).
On the other hand, the multiplication constant dictates the
amplitude response of (1). It is required that the amplitude re-
sponse of (1) should be less than unity for the entire frequen-
cies. Fig. 1 shows the amplitude response of (1) as a function
with different values of when the multiplication constant
1444 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 52, NO. 5, MAY 2004

Fig. 1. Amplitude responses with different values of d.

Fig. 2. Relative error of amplitude response for different values of d.

is set equal to 0.417. Apparently, the transformation in (1)

has a good linearity in amplitude response when is set equal to
0.1658. The value of 0.417 is selected to assume that the max-
imum value of in (1) is unity for the entire frequencies when
. When is equal to one, the amplitude response of
the system function in (1) becomes infinite at . The bi-
linear transformation, when is one, has a good linearity when
the normalized frequency is less than . Therefore, the bi- Fig. 3. Two-port device.
linear transformation is improper to be adopted as the system
function of a wide-band differentiator. Fig. 2. shows the rela- that their transfer functions are similar to the system functions
tive error of the amplitude response of (1) for different values of of differentiators.
when they are compared to an ideal differentiator. The ideal
differentiator is assumed to have precisely linear amplitude re- III. IMPLEMENTATION OF DIFFERENTIATORS
sponse for all frequencies, as shown in Fig. 1. If , the A. First-Order Differentiator
relative error is less than 1% (or 40 dB) when .
For , we, therefore, adopt (1) as the system func- For a two-port network shown in Fig. 3, the chain-scattering
tion of the differentiator in a discrete-time IIR format and the parameters ( or -parameters) ( ) of a two-port
selected system function of the first-order differentiator is network are defined as follows:

(3) (5)

If we implement a circuit with the system function shown where and are, respectively, the incident and reflected
in (3), the differentiator is accurate for the operating frequency waves at port 1, and and are, respectively, the incident
up to 0.8 of the normalizing frequency. With a finite error tol- wave and the reflected wave at port 2. In Fig. 3, and are
erance, such a differentiator has a wider operating frequency dependent variables, while and are independent vari-
bandwidth than those previously reported [7]. In particular, the ables. Table I shows the matrices for two transmission-line
concise mathematical expression will lead to a simple circuit configurations [8], [9], namely, the serial transmission line and
configuration of the differentiator. shunt-short stub in the -domain, where , , and
For a second-order differentiator, the system function are the propagation constant, physical length, and characteristic
is obtained by squaring (3), i.e., impedance, respectively. Note that is the reference character-
istic impedance, which is assumed to be 50 , unless otherwise
mentioned.
(4) It is assumed that all finite lines have the same electrical
length, i.e., , where is the propagation delay
After defining the discrete-time system functions, the time of finite lines. To obtain the matrices in the -domain,
remaining task is to implement both first- and second-order we set .
differentiators with equal electric-length transmission lines. In From (5), if the output port of a shunt-short stub is loaded with
other words, we synthesize the transmission-line circuits so a matched termination (i.e., ), the transfer function of
HSUE et al.: IMPLEMENTATION OF FIRST- AND SECOND-ORDER MICROWAVE DIFFERENTIATORS 1445

TABLE I
BASIC TRANSMISSION-LINE ELEMENT’S CHAIN
SCATTERING-PARAMETER MATRICES

Fig. 4. Physical layout of microstrips for a first-order differentiator.

shunt-short stubs, and the term represents the delay

factor of serial transmission-line sections.
If we set to approximate the system function in
(4) and neglect the propagation delay factor, we obtain

the shunt-short stub is given by . From Table I, (9)

we obtain

(6)
If we divide (9) with , we get
where and is the characteristic impedance
of the shunt stub. If we set equal to in (3), we get
and . Notice that is 17.86 if
is 50 . This reveals that a transmission line shunted with a (10)
short-circuited stub can be employed to implement a first-order The next step is to compare the coefficients of denominators
microwave differentiator dictated by (3). on both sides of (10) so that is as close to as pos-
sible. Notice that in (10) is determined by the characteristic
B. Second-Order Differentiator impedances of all transmission lines. Upon using the optimiza-
If a transmission-line configuration consists of serial sec- tion method [9] in the sense of minimum square error for the
tions and shunt-short stubs ( and are positive integers), coefficients of the denominators in (10), we obtain the charac-
the overall chain-scattering parameter of such a teristic impedances of transmission lines.
circuit is obtained by the sequential multiplication of chain-scat- To implement a differentiator with transmission lines, the
tering parameter matrices of all transmission-line elements [9]. electrical length of each transmission-line section is set equal
The chain-scattering parameter matrix element to 90 at the normalizing frequency. We have , where
is given as represents the physical length of each transmission-line section
and is the wavelength at the normalizing frequency.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

(7)
To construct a first-order microwave differentiator, we em-
ploy microstrips to emulate transmission lines. The microstrips
are assumed to be both lossless and dispersionless for the cur-
where all are real and are determined by the characteristic
rent consideration. Fig. 4 shows the physical layout of the mi-
impedances of all transmission-line elements. is the reflec-
crostrips, which is built on a Duroid substrate with a thickness
tion coefficient defined in Table I. If the output of the trans-
of 30 mil (0.762 mm) and relative dielectric constant .
mission-line circuit is loaded with a matched termination, the
To implement the shunted transmission-line stub having a char-
transfer function of the overall circuit, denoted as , is as
acteristic impedance of 17.86 , we use a parallel configura-
follows:
tion, i.e., the equivalent microstrips are placed symmetrically
on both sides of the 50- line. The propagation delay time of
(8)
each shunted finite line is 20 ps, which corresponds to the nor-
malizing (or maximum operating) frequency of 12.5 GHz. The
ground termination of shunted finite lines is implemented by
where is a function of the charac- using multiple via-holes along the edges. Fig. 5 shows the mag-
teristic impedances of all shunted and serial transmission-line nitude responses of both simulated values and experimental re-
elements. The term in the numerator of (8) is due to sults of the transmission coefficient and reflection co-
1446
Fig. 5. Magnitude responses of both experimental results and theoretical
values of S (f ) and S (f ) of the first-order differentiator.
Fig. 6. Physical layout of microstrips for a second-order differentiator.
efficient of the first-order differentiator for frequencies
extending from dc to 10 GHz. Notice that 10 GHz represents
0.8 of the full-band normalizing frequency. Measured
and are in good agreement with the respective theoret-
ical values. Measured increases linearly as the frequency
increases.
We also use microstrips to construct a second-order mi-
crowave differentiator. Fig. 6 shows the physical layout of the
microstrip circuit, which is built on the same substrate as that
used for the first-order differentiator. The circuit consists of
seven-section serial lines ( ) and three shunted stubs
( ). Of course, other configurations can be selected to
implement the differentiator provided that the condition
is met. The characteristic impedances of transmission lines are
obtained by using the optimization process [9] that involves
the comparison between the coefficients of the denominators
on both sides of (10). To assure the feasibility of microstrips,
the lower and upper bounds of the characteristic impedances
for the optimization process are set as . the measured frequency-domain results agree very well with the
The characteristic impedances of serial lines from the left-
to right-hand side are 54.19, 92.0, 75.54, 40, 40, 54.82, and
61.34 . We also use a parallel configuration to implement
the shunted stubs. The characteristic impedances of equivalent
shunted stubs from the left- to right-hand side are 49.91, 50.0,
and 40.0 .
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 52, NO. 5, MAY 2004
Fig. 7. Magnitude responses of both experimental results and theoretical
values of S (f ) and S (f ) of the second-order differentiator.
Fig. 8. Response of the first-order differentiator for ramp signal input.
Of course, the characteristic impedances of shunt stubs on
one side of the serial line in Fig. 6 are twice these values. The
propagation delay time of each finite line is 20 ps, which pro-
duces the normalizing frequency of 12.5 GHz. Once again, the
ground termination of shunted finite lines is implemented by
using multiple via-holes along the edges. The total length of the
differentiator excluding the reference 50- lines on both sides is
29.43 mm. Fig. 7 shows the experimental results, as well as the
simulated values of the transmission coefficient and re-
flection coefficient of the second-order differentiator for
frequencies ranging from dc to 10 GHz. As shown in this figure,
theoretical values for frequencies up to 0.8 of the full-band nor-
malizing frequency.
To examine the characteristics of the differentiators in the
time domain, we employ ramp signals as input signals to the de-
vices. Fig. 8 shows the experimental results of the first-order dif-
ferentiator when ramp signals with rise times of 100 and 150 ps
HSUE et al.: IMPLEMENTATION OF FIRST- AND SECOND-ORDER MICROWAVE DIFFERENTIATORS
Fig. 9. Response of the second-order differentiator for ramp signal input.
are incident upon the device shown in Fig. 4. The 150-ps ramp
signal is turned into a square wave, while the 100-ps ramp signal
is transformed into a distorted pulse signal. The amplitudes of
output signals decrease in both cases. Little ripples appear on
both the rising and falling edges of output signals. Notice that
the rise time of output signals becomes 50 ps for two different
input signals. On the other hand, the output signals have a dif-
ferent fall time. The output signal associated with the 100-ps
rise-time input signal has a larger fall time. In Fig. 8, the theoret-
ical results of output signals are shown to compare with the mea-
sured results, wherein the propagation delay time of transmis-
sion lines is taken into account. Fig. 9 shows the output signals
of the second-order differentiator when the same ramp signals
are incident upon the device shown in Fig. 6. Both output sig-
nals appear as distorted triangular waveforms. The output signal
associated with the input signal of 100-ps rise time has a larger
peak-to-peak value. In particular, two outputs decrease signif-
icantly, and the time duration of two outputs lasts longer than
that of output signals in the first-order differentiator. For conve-
nience, the theoretical results of output signals are also shown
for comparison with the measured results.
V. CONCLUSION
Simple and accurate formulations have been employed to rep-
resent both first- and second-order differentiators in the -do-
main. In particular, the -domain representations of scattering
characteristics of equal-length nonuniform transmission lines
facilitate the implementation of discrete-domain differentiators
in the microwave frequency range. These differentiators have
been implemented by using microstrip transmission lines. The
experimental results agreed very well with the simulated values.
It is possible that many other circuits developed in DSP studies
can also be implemented by using transmission lines for mi-
crowave applications.
1447
REFERENCES
[1] M. I. Skolink, Introduction to Radar Systems. New York: McGraw-
Hill, 1980, pp. 399–408.
[2] M. A. Al-Alaoui, “Novel IIR differentiator from the Simpson rule,”
IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. I, vol. 41, pp. 186–187, Feb. 1994.
[3] C.-C. Tseng, “Design of fractional order digital FIR differentiators,”
IEEE Signal Processing Lett., vol. 8, pp. 77–79, Mar. 2001.
[4] B. Kumar and S. C. Dutta-Roy, “Design of digital differentiators for
low-frequencies,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 76, pp. 287–289, Mar. 1988.
[5] S. C. Pei and J. J. Shyu, “Analytic closed-form matrix for designing
higher order digital differentiators using eigen-approach,” IEEE Trans.
Signal Processing, vol. 44, pp. 698–701, Mar. 1996.
[6] I. R. Khan and R. Ohba, “New design of full-band differentiators based
on Taylor series,” Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng.–Vis. Image Signal Processing,
vol. 146, no. 4, pp. 185–189, Aug. 1999.
[7] C.-W. Hsue, T.-R. Cheng, H.-M. Cheng, and H.-M. Chen, “A second-
order microwave differentiator,” IEEE Microwave Wireless Comp. Lett.,
vol. 13, pp. 137–139, Mar. 2003.
[8] T.-R. Cheng and C.-W. Hsue, “High-speed waveshaping using nonuni-
form lines and Z transform technique,” Proc. Inst. Elect. Eng., vol. 150,
pp. 77–83, Apr. 2003.
[9] D.-C. Chang and C.-W. Hsue, “Design and implementation of filters
using transfer functions in the Z domain,” IEEE Trans. Microwave
Theory Tech., vol. 49, pp. 979–985, May 2001.
[10] A. V. Oppenheim and R. W. Shafer, Discrete-Time Signal Pro-
cessing. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1989.
[11] T. Edward, Foundations for Microstrip Circuit Design. New York:
Wiley, 1991.
Ching-Wen Hsue (S’85–M’85–SM’91) was born
in Tainan, Taiwan, R.O.C. He received the B.S. and
M.S. degrees in electrophysics and electronics from
the National Chiao-Tung University, Hsin-Chu,
Taiwan, R.O.C., in 1973 and 1975, respectively, and
the Ph.D. degree from the Polytechnic University
(formerly the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn),
Brooklyn, NY, in 1985.
From 1975 to 1980, he was a Research Engineer
with the Telecommunication Laboratories, Ministry
of Communication, Taiwan, R.O.C. From 1985 to
1993, he was with Bell Laboratories, Princeton, NJ, as a Member of Technical
Staff. In 1993, he joined the Department of Electronic Engineering, National
Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C., as
a Professor, and from August 1997 to July 1999, he was the Department
Chairman. His current interests are in pulse-signal propagation in lossless and
lossy transmission media, wave interactions between nonlinear elements and
transmission lines, photonics, high-power amplifiers, and electromagnetic
inverse scattering.
Lin-Chuan Tsai was born in Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.,
in 1968. He received the M.S. degree in electronic
engineering from the National Taiwan University of
Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C., in
1998, and is currently working toward the Ph.D. de-
gree in electronic engineering at the National Taiwan
University of Science and Technology.
He is currently a Project Engineer with the Mobile
Business Group, Chunghwa Telecom, Taipei,
Taiwan, R.O.C., where he is involved with the
wide-band code division multiple access (WCDMA)
network planning. His current interests are discrete time signal processing,
wireless communications, and microwave planar filter design and passive
circuit design.
1448 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 52, NO. 5, MAY 2004

Kuo-Lung Chen was born in Keelung, Taiwan

R.O.C., in 1954. He received the B.S. degree in tex-
tile engineering from the National Taiwan University
of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.,
in 1980, the M.S. degree in computer science
and information engineering from the National
Chiao-Tung University, Hsin-Chu, Taiwan, R.O.C.,
in 1995, and is currently working toward the Ph.D.
degree in electronic engineering at the National
Taiwan University of Science and Technology.
From 1981 to 1996, he was an Engineer with
the Data Communications Institute, Ministry of Transportation and Com-
munications (MOTC), Taiwan, R.O.C. From July 1996 to 1998, he was a
Section Chief with the Public Telecommunications Department, Directorate
General of Telecommunications (DGT). From October 1998 to July 2003,
he was a Station Director of the Northern Taiwan Regulatory Station, DGT,
MOTC. He is currently a Deputy Director of Public Telecommunications
Department, Directorate General of Telecommunications. His current interests
are discrete-time signal processing, wireless asynchronous transfer mode
(ATM), microwave planar filter design, and passive circuit design.