FULL-WAVE SEGMENTATION ANALYSIS OF ARBITRARILY-SHAPED PLANAR CIRCUIT

This paper presents a novel full-wave segmentation method for analyzin g a complex and large microwave planar circuit which is divided into s everal smaller segments with corresponding multiport network parameter s, They are obtained by a full-wave space-domain integral-equation tec hnique in connection to a proposed excitation model based on the equiv alence principle, The integral equation is solved numerically by Galer kin's procedure resulting in the generalized scattering-matrix (GSM) d escriptions of all the subcircuit segments. The combination of these G SM's yields an overall network characterization of the composite circu it, Rigorous convergence studies and extensive validity checks confirm the reliability and accuracy of the proposed method, The novel techni que immediately demonstrates its obvious application for quantitative characterization of higher order modes associated with a microwave-cir cuit discontinuity problem, Finally, very good agreement is obtained i n a comparative study of an arbitrary planar structure analyzed by our full-wave method with and without segmentation, respectively.