Incorporating Resistive Foil RF Attenuators and Equalizers on and within PCBs from DC to 60GHz: Design, Analysis, and Experimental Validation

We present a new method for designing embedded wideband attenuators and equalizers utilizing thin-film resistor foil on printed circuit boards (PCBs). Our design is flexible and enables the realization of arbitrary attenuator values by controlling the geometry of a simple structure. When tuned in simulation, we show that our designs are effective up to 60 GHz and beyond.