A Wilkinson power divider/combiner with enhanced power-handling capability

Abstract

This letter proposed a new Wilkinson power combiner/divider (PCD) with enhanced average power-handling capability (APHC) by decreasing the impedance of the microstrip of the combine port. For verification, one example of the proposed Wilkinson PCD operating at 2.3 GHz was designed, fabricated and measured to verify the proposed theory. One traditional Wilkinson PCD operating at 2.3 GHz was also fabricated to compare the APHC of the proposed Wilkinson PCD and the traditional Wilkinson PCD, by means of measuring the temperature variation of the microstrip line at the same input power. The measurement result of the temperature variation suggests the APHC of the proposed Wilkinson PCD is nearly twice that of the traditional Wilkinson PCD.