14 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—I: FUNDAMENTAL THEORY AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 46, NO.
1, JANUARY 1999
Darlington Synthesis Revisited
Herbert J. Carlin, Life Fellow, IEEE
(Invited Paper)
Abstract—An approach to Darlington’s synthesis is described
which is based entirely on a single Foster reactance (LPR)
function. The procedure stems from the remarkable result that
any section producing an arbitrary transmission zero within its
class (Brune, type C, type D, reciprocal, or nonreciprocal), can
be extracted from any prescribed LPR function, leaving an LPR
remainder of reduced degree. The nonreciprocal sections play a
prominent role in the discussion.
I. SOME HISTORICAL NOTES
A LMOST 60 years have passed since Sidney Darlington
published his landmark contribution on insertion loss
synthesis [1]. The circumstances for the genesis of Sid’s
article were somewhat unusual. The work was, of course,
carried out at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill,
NJ, but the paper itself is Darlington’s doctoral dissertation
for the Ph.D. degree granted at Columbia University, New
York, NY. Rather than being associated with an engineering
department, the research was under the formal jurisdiction
of the Faculty of Pure Science. The word “formal” is used
advisedly here. Columbia’s Physics Department was world
class, but assuredly there was no one in residence competent
to pass judgment on Sid’s work. Outside referees were called
on to evaluate the dissertation, and in fact these included the
now legendary Ronald M. Foster. A considerable number of
years later, Ronald told me that reviewing Sid’s dissertation
was a formidable task. Anyone who reads the article, even
today, can understand that as an understatement.
The idea for image parameter filters is based on the phe-
nomena of cutoff in a ladder structure made up of an infinite
cascade of identical sections, each composed of finite, lossless
elements. For example, a never-ending (series), (shunt)
ladder propagates signals up to a finite cutoff frequency,
beyond which there is no further transmission of signal energy.
Since fabricators of hardware insist on components of finite
size, cutoff, as exhibited by an infinite structure, was a concept
that spawned a veritable cottage industry of technical paper
production devoted to methods for achieving similar cutoff
characteristics in a ladder of finite extent with resistive ter-
minations. Ultimately, highly sophisticated (and complicated)
analytic methods of analysis and design were constructed
including procedures for image parameter filters with elliptic
function response.
Sid Darlington started afresh by asking a straightforward
question that defined the real problem and bypassed all the
Manuscript received April 4, 1998.
The author is with the School of Electrical Engineering, Cornell University,
Ithaca, NY 14853 USA.
Publisher Item Identifier S 1057-7122(99)00538-3.
1057–7122/99$10.00  1999 IEEE
paraphernalia of cutoff in an unterminated infinite structure.
How do you build a finite two-port of reactors operating
between resistive loads, which transmits frequencies in a
passband and reflects them in an adjacent stopband? As
pointed out by Kuh and Sandberg, in the introduction to this
Darlington Memorial Issue, the answer came in two parts.
First, find a rational transfer function which approximates
the desired frequency response and is physically realizable.
Then synthesize the response function by a doubly terminated,
lossless ladder structure.
The opening article for this memorial issue also mentions
that Darlington’s insertion loss method was slow to catch
on. But at the present time it is the universally accepted
synthesis cornerstone for the design of lossless analog filters,
equalizers, matching and frequency shaping networks, and
similar components. Perhaps Sid’s somewhat casual approach
to the derivation of the ladder sections needed for complete
realization of the overall two-port delayed acceptance. It is
not unlikely that the realizability of the Brune, type C, and
(particularly) of the type D sections was perfectly obvious to
him but not nearly so to others. Once his procedure became
established, dozens of new articles and textbook discussions
appeared presenting proofs for the extraction of the various
ladder sections. But it is probably fair to say that even at
the present time there are few demonstrations to be found
of the validity of the entire synthesis process, which are
trustworthy, complete, and not overly complicated. The point
of view of this paper is that difficulties arise in most of
the published material because the positive real (PR) input
dissipative driving point impedance to the terminated two-
port is usually taken as the vantage point for synthesis. The
approach here is to base the entire realization process on
the single lossless Foster reactance (lossless positive real or
LPR) input impedance function to the unterminated structure.
A Foster function is simpler to work with than a general
dissipative PR function, and its employment helps avoid many
of the difficulties usually encountered in establishing the
Darlington synthesis. Essentially this is due to the remarkable
result that if any transmission zero producing section (Brune,
Type C, Type D, reciprocal, or nonreciprocal), set for an
arbitrary zero within its class, is extracted from any LPR
function, then the remainder is a Foster function of reduced
degree, or a short or open circuit.
Sid was eclectic in his interests which ranged from every
aspect of electrical science to mountain climbing. I remember
once playing hookey with him from an IEEE meeting in San
Francisco. We were walking near Fisherman’s Wharf when Sid
CARLIN: DARLINGTON SYNTHESIS REVISITED 15

noticed a somewhat decrepit marquee advertising a matinee paraunitary). Thus , or .

performance of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” He said, in his As a matter of notation, means matrix transpose,
dry, matter of fact, manner: “Hey, that looks interesting. Let’s means transpose-conjugate, matrices are in boldface font,
try it.” And in we went. (It turned out to be pretty good.) I like and is the identity matrix. One other bit of notation:
to think that the somewhat different approach given here to his , so once again continuing into , the
remarkable synthesis method would elicit a similar reaction. paraunitary-unitary property of may then be expressed as
(4a)
II. THE REACTANCE TWO-PORT
(4b)
Our discussion starts with a brief look at the general
properties of the transducer gain which is to be synthesized, The two forms are equivalent since square inverse matrices
and at the associated reactance two-port which we designate as commute. The inner product of the first row, first column of
. (A somewhat differently oriented and much more detailed (4b) gives
discussion is given in [2].) The transducer gain measures the
(5)
fraction of available power from a resistive source, transmitted
through the lossless intervening two-port to a resistive Then using (3),
load. The construction of the gain as a rational function of
angular frequency by an appropriate approximation is the first
step of the Darlington process, and we assume this has been
Again applying spectral factorization
accomplished. The gain is then given as
Average Power to Load (6)
Average Available Source Power
(1) Note that if we take the inner product of the first row and
column of (4a) the result is . Comparing
In (1), and are even nonnegative polynomials, and with (5) we verify (2). Taking the inner product of the second
is an even rational function. Since is passive (lossless), the row and column of (4a) yields , so that
gain is bounded by unity, and is, in fact, identical with the
squared magnitude of the transmittance of (the (7a)
form the 2 2 scattering matrix of ). (7b)
(2) Finally, take the inner product of the second row and first
column of (4b), , so that
In (2) we have used the property that in a lossless two-port . Substitute , and .
the transducer gain remains the same if load and source are
Also let ; from (7),
interchanged even if the two-port is nonreciprocal. Because of
their nonnegative even character, we can use the continuation
, and perform spectral factorization on
polynomials and
to divide the roots in the plane between those in the left A useful (but not necessary) allocation of the factors to
half plane (LHP) and those in the right half plane (RHP). and is to choose since this cancels extra factors,
Half the factors are placed in , the other half in , and avoids possible right half plane poles due to . The two
without regard to LHP or RHP, provided conjugate pairs are remaining scattering variables are therefore
kept together. Similarly, for and , but only LHP
roots appear in . If we use the notation , we (8)
can write
and the scattering matrix of the two-port is
(3)

In view of (1), and since a passive system is stable, the (9)

scattering coefficients of can have no poles in
Therefore, only LHP root factors are assigned to so that it is a
Hurwitz polynomial. This is not necessary for ; the factors of
are simply divided 50–50 (conjugate pairs kept together)
between and . We show later that a more restrictive choice
for the factors in , is desirable.
In a lossless two-port, all the available source power is either
transmitted to the load or reflected (there is no dissipation).
The analytic consequence is that the scattering matrix of
, must be unitary on (termed
.
The matrix has been constructed as a paraunitary matrix,
analytic in the closed right half plane. Hence it is lossless
and bounded real (LBR), and so is physically realizable as
a reactance two-port [2]. It is in fact the Belevitch canonic
(minimal) representation of a lossless two-port [3].
If , i.e, even or odd, then and the
reactance two-port satisfies reciprocity; if not the structure is
nonreciprocal. Suppose that in , all the RHP roots are paired
16 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—I: FUNDAMENTAL THEORY AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 46, NO. 1, JANUARY 1999
with a mirror image set of roots in the LHP. The root factors
then yield an even polynomial in , so that , and
is symmetric. If there is an additional root of odd multiplicity
at the origin, then is odd, and using , reciprocity
is still satisfied. For example, assume has the factor
( real and positive). Then has the factor , and a
nonreciprocal realization is required. On the other hand, if the
root is also present, the resulting factor in is
(LHP and RHP roots paired) which appears identically in
so reciprocity is not violated.
Reciprocity can be assured by the following device. If there
are any real (except at ) or complex plane roots, simply
multiply by common factors so that
is a perfect square. In the spectral factorization, choose all
the LHP roots for so it remains a Hurwitz polynomial,
but the roots of are selected to be LHP and RHP image
pairs. Furthermore, since , all root factors
in are already perfect squares and are assigned equally
to and as purely even or odd (if a zero at the origin)
factors. Depending on whether is even or odd, we can finally
choose for , and reciprocity is assured. Once
the superfluous factors are introduced, the functions and
are recomputed. The new scattering matrix is no longer
minimal in degree, but it is reciprocal.
To summarize: we have shown that a rational, even trans-
ducer gain bounded by zero and unity can always be realized
by a lossless reciprocal two-port with resistive source and load
terminations. When has roots in the interior of the LHP
or RHP, a minimal realization of the reactance two-port may
be nonreciprocal if the reciprocal form of is achieved using
augmentation by common factors.
If at the outset, the assigned function is a positive real (PR)
driving point impedance , then is the
corresponding BR reflectance. Starting with this function, and
setting , we can use a procedure similar to that
discussed above to once again arrive at the Belevitch form
of a scattering matrix representing a resistively terminated
reactance two-port. This establishes Darlington’s classic result,
that any rational PR impedance is always realizable as a
reciprocal lossless two-port terminated by a resistor.
III. DARLINGTON SYNTHESIS BASED
ON A SINGLE FOSTER FUNCTION
The impedance matrix of the reactance two-port follows
from the scattering matrix of (9) by using the inversion
equation
(10a)
(10b)
Referring to (9), , , , excess pole may be extracted from Z11 or Z22 to make the residue matrix
; subscripts “ ” and “ ” mean “even part” and
“odd part.” Also, . The form (10a)
corresponds to the choice of upper signs in (9), and (10b)
to the lower signs, and when , reciprocity is satisfied
with the plus and minus signs corresponding to even and
, odd, respectively. It is readily shown that when the two-port
is terminated in a resistor, its input impedance can be
expressed as
(11)
Clearly, the matrix of can be generated from .
The LBR property of translates into the following real-
izability properties of .
• or equivalently, . That is
the impedance is skew Hermitian on the boundary, or
paraskew. If reciprocity holds .
• All the poles of are simple and on the boundary.
• The residue matrix at each pole is Hermitian
and nonnegative definite, i.e., , and
. In the reciprocal case, all the residues are
real, and .
The synthesis procedure employs the concept of zeros of
transmission. These are the closed RHP zeros of ,
or equivalently of when all common factors are
canceled. The zeros are counted according to multiplicity, but
boundary zeros are counted to half multiplicity. The function
contains zeros of transmission, but if , have
private poles or excess poles,1 then the corresponding zeros of
transmission will not appear in the transfer impedances.
Keeping in mind the partial fraction expansions of the ,
it is evident that we can represent as a two-port with
series branches at the input and output containing resonators
corresponding to the excess and private poles, plus a remainder
whose residue matrices are all compact.
Following the preceding discussion, we are now ready to
tackle the problem of the cascade synthesis of a reactance two-
port , whose residue matrices are all compact, and which has
no private poles in . This means that is automatically
determined if only three (two in the reciprocal case) of the four
are realized. One should mention that when this two-port
is terminated in a resistor, its input impedance is a minimum
reactance PR function, i.e., it has no poles on .
The synthesis is carried out by operating on the Foster
reactance function , of the LPR matrix . This function
is attractive to work with, because it is so simply described.
It is rational and odd. All its poles are simple, on , and
have real positive residues. The minimum number of elements
required for its realization is the higher degree of the two
polynomials or in (10).
The procedure is accomplished by employing full or partial
zero/pole extractions from to produce individual lossless
sections each corresponding to a transmission zero whose
removal, it can be shown, leaves a Foster function remainder
1 Private poles are those that reside exclusively in Z
11 or Z22 . The transfer
functions Z12 ; Z21 cannot have private poles. If the determinant of the
residue matrix at a j! pole is zero, it is compact at that pole. If a residue
matrix is not compact, the Z matrix possesses an excess pole. A portion of the
compact.
CARLIN: DARLINGTON SYNTHESIS REVISITED 17

(a) (b)
Fig. 1. (a) Brune section ( M> 0) and type C reciprocal section ( M < 0).
(b) Type C nonreciprocal section.

of reduced degree. There are four kinds of transmission zero,

and five associated Darlington sections. The reciprocal case is
(a) (b)
summarized as follows.
Fig. 2. (a) Type D reciprocal section. (b) Type D nonreciprocal section. All
1) Transmission zeros on , which correspond to bound- coil pairs perfectly coupled.
ary poles or zeros of , give, respectively, the A and
B Sections; the A are implemented by series connected
parallel resonant circuits (only a single inductor or
element is combined with additional reactances to form
capacitor is required for a pole at infinity or zero,
a Brune, C, or D section. The degree of is thereby
respectively), the B by series resonant circuits (pure
reduced by two (four in the case of type D), and with the
capacitor or inductor for zero at infinity or zero) in shunt.
section removed, the remainder can be shown to be LPR
2) Transmission zeros on which are not extractable as
A or B sections appear in with double multiplicity (or a short circuit or open circuit) for any prescribed
without the need of common factors, but are not present and any prescribed Foster function .
in . Each is implemented by a Brune Section con- • Continuing in this fashion, is completely realized. At
sisting of a perfectly coupled coil plus a capacitor, as the same time, because the residue matrices are compact,
in Fig. 1(a). The realization is reciprocal and minimal. the poles of (they are also the poles of ) are
(Two reactive elements.) realized as well. We have also simultaneously realized
3) In the reciprocal case, transmission zeros on the positive the zeros of (transmission zeros ). Therefore,
axis of the plane are of even multiplicity and occur is determined to within a multiplicative constant, which
in paired with LHP zeros. The implementation is the is taken care of by an ideal transformer if necessary.
Type C Section, which is similar to the Brune section, but • Due to compactness, is automatically realized; that
the polarity of the coupled coils is reversed (Fig. 1(a), is, except for private poles which are implemented by
two reactive elements). resonators in a series branch at the output. These output
4) In the reciprocal case, conjugate complex transmission elements have no effect on or .
zeros in the right half of the plane are of even • Important special cases occur when the zeros of trans-
multiplicity and occur in paired with LHP zeros. The mission are all at infinity, or at zero. The corresponding
implementation is the Type D Section which consists of a realizations are obtained by expanding in continued
pair of perfectly coupled coils, a second pair of coupled fractions as a low-pass or high-pass ladder, respec-
coils shunted by a capacitor, and an additional capacitor, tively.
as shown in Fig. 2(a).2 (Four reactive elements.) Since the details of the reciprocal extraction procedure
Type A and/or B sections are removed from for zeros are spelled out in [2], the following example only illustrates
of transmission (Item 1) by pole or zero extraction, resulting in the process, and justification for the validity of each step is
a Foster remainder impedance of reduced degree. The validity omitted. We defer any real proofs to the nonreciprocal case
of the reciprocal cascade realization for the remaining sections covered in the next section.
is based on the following ideas. We assume compactness at Example 1: is a reciprocal lossless two-port, and
all poles, and let each of the zeros of transmission (excluding
those in due to private poles), be denoted by .
• An or element is removed ( and for type D) of
impedance , so that . The extracted
The termination of is unit resistance, and the system is to
2 Darlington’s original version of the type D can be readily retrieved from have a third-order zero of transmission at , as well as
d
Fig. 2(a), by removing the elastance , at the input to the coupled coils of the
d
central section, and instead connecting an elastance 0 bridging the coils. The the quadruplet of complex transmission zeros,
d d n =n
two circuits are equivalent if 0 = (1 + )2 , where 2 = 11 22 . n L =L with , a perfect
18 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—I: FUNDAMENTAL THEORY AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 46, NO. 1, JANUARY 1999

Fig. 3. Ladder realization with reciprocal type D section for Example 2.

square. The matrix is compact at all poles, except that , and form a “Tee” of capacitors with elastances
includes the excess pole . Find the cascade representation satisfying , so that . The
of . elastance “Tee” has as equivalent a capacitor followed by
First we find the D section for the complex zeros of an ideal transformer of turns ratio
transmission. Extract from to force the
remainder to satisfy . Thus Equating
real and imaginary parts, , . (These are
guaranteed to always be positive.) If the resulting remainder
admittance is expanded in partial fractions

The , arm, modeled by the type D section, produces the

complex zeros of transmission. The remainder in the output
arm, connected across the type D section, has impedance
The impedance is an nonpassive shunt element (in . Finally, a third-order zero
parallel with ) with zeros at the . of transmission at infinity is required. Therefore, the output
Expanding port is placed across (this has no effect on ), which
results in a double zero of transmission at infinity due to
. Then, an inductance , realizing the excess pole
at , is placed in series with the output port, to raise the zero
multiplicity to . Note that a total of seven reactors have been
The shunting “b” branch consists of the active series resonator used. This is the same as the degree of , plus one more for
in series with the antiresonant passive circuit , all in the excess pole. The circuit is shown in Fig. 3. The Type D
parallel with . section is equivalent to that given by Fig. 2(a). This is shown
The negative coil can be eliminated by by introducing an output transformer (or changing the load
separating into two parts, , such that the “Tee” value) to cancel the transformer across . Additionally, this
of inductors satisfies . Then requires a change in the value of the coupled coil elements. We
the resultant “Tee” is the equivalent of a pair of perfectly also need an ideal transformer across the parallel resonant
coupled coils with self and mutual inductances . circuit, which in turn allows to be replaced by a capacitor
We find . To eliminate the negative capacitor, let across the input of a pair of perfectly coupled coils.
CARLIN: DARLINGTON SYNTHESIS REVISITED 19

IV. NONRECIPROCAL REALIZATIONS Now substitute , as well as the values of , and

obtained from (12) and (13), into (14).
A. Type C Nonreciprocal Section
The type A, type B, and Brune sections are minimal recip- (15)
rocal realizations of zeros of transmission on . Zeros of
transmission in the open right half plane may This can be recognized as Richards’ equation which takes
require nonreciprocal sections for realization with a minimum one LPR function into another [2, p. 350], [4].
number of reactances.3 It is not difficult, for a simple zero of We prove that the remainder is LPR by examining the
transmission on the axis, to conjure up a minimal reflectance corresponding to
nonreciprocal C section using a single reactor. Represent the
impedance matrix of the C section as , and since it
is paraskew, the simple zero on in is paired with a zero When is substituted from (15) into the expression for ,
at in . Then and the dust from the algebra settles

(16)
(12)
We wish to prove is LBR, which in turn would prove that
is LPR. The first factor of (16) is an LBR reflectance of
The zeros are at . A second form has replaced
unit amplitude on since is an LPR function. The
by .
second allpass factor has unit amplitude on as well. Thus
The residue matrix at the pole is compact. Setting
. Hence were it not for the single RHP pole at
poses no loss of generality, since an ideal trans-
, would be LBR. But the numerator of the first
former can always be introduced at the output. The equivalent
factor conveniently provides a canceling zero at , so is
circuit for (12) is shown in Fig. 1(b). We have taken the gyrator
LBR. Furthermore, is odd, so ; the
equations as , .
denominator of the first factor cancels in the numerator
The problem before us now is to show that starting out with
of the second. The remainder impedance is therefore LPR,
the global matrix for the entire reactance two-port
and one degree lower than that of and we have established
containing a zero of transmission on the axis, we can remove
the realizability of the nonreciprocal C section extraction. A
a nonreciprocal lossless C section by operating on the Foster
similar derivation follows if the elastance is replaced by
function , leaving a remainder of reduced degree which is
inductance .
still a Foster function. Suppose the type C section of Fig. 1(b)
Example 2: Consider the transducer gain
is extracted. We note that at the zero of transmission there is
zero current at the output port of the section, no matter how
it is terminated. In other words, at the loading of the C
section can be replaced by an open circuit, with resulting input (17)
impedance . (Refer to Fig. 1(b), and
use the fact that the input to a gyrator is a short circuit when the The gain corresponds to a system with simple zeros of
output port is open-circuited.) Furthermore, , so that transmission at , and at . Construct a nonreciprocal
realization, and compare with the reciprocal case.
(13)
First consider the reciprocal case. Referring to (17), the
The positive values of and follow because is function of on the right is , and must be multiplied
LPR, hence positive real on positive . Thus we have a by the common factor in numerator and denominator
lossless realizable section.4 so that the zeros occur with even multiplicity. Then
Let be the remainder impedance after the C section is
extracted. We wish to show it is a realizable LPR function. (18)
We start by expressing input impedance in terms of
and the of the C section. We can also invert to find in Referring to (6), (8), and the surrounding discussion,
terms of and the . , , and by factorization
. Using (10a)
(14a)

(14b) (19)

where . There is an excess pole at , corresponding to the

3 Itis easy to overlook the fact that if the RHP and LHP zeros are already
present in f f3 with even multiplicity without the need for surplus factors,
then the resulting C or D section is a minimal realization. This is the case in
Example 1.
4 Dual realizations may also be used.
zero of transmission at that point, which can be realized as
an extracted series inductance at the input or output. The
remainder matrix is compact at its poles and produces the
zero at . It can be represented as a reciprocal Type C
20 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—I: FUNDAMENTAL THEORY AND APPLICATIONS, VOL. 46, NO. 1, JANUARY 1999

section with the configuration shown in Fig. 1(a). The system Equate real and imaginary parts and solve (23) for and .7
comprises a total of three reactors, one for the type A section5
and two for the C section. (24)
If superfluous factors are not employed the realization is
minimal, but nonreciprocal. Thus , Since is LPR, then at any point in the RHP ,
, , and . Furthermore, by examining the partial fractions
expansion for it follows that . Therefore,
we are guaranteed that , . At the zero of
transmission , or ; but ,
(20)
which gives the value of , followed by that of
which should be compared with (18). The nonreciprocal
impedance matrix may now be computed from (10a). (25)

The proposed section, with its zero of transmission at , is

(21) therefore realizable. We now prove that when it is extracted
from any prescribed LPR function the remainder is LPR
and reduced in degree.
with and . The remainder function ( and are rational)
There is a private pole at the origin in which may be is given by (14b). We write it in a form which exhibits its
removed as a series inductor at the input. Suppose, though, zeros at
that we first extract the nonreciprocal type C section which
produces the transmission zero at . The element
values are given by (13). The elastance is
, the gyrator ratio and
(26)
the type C section is as shown in Fig. 1(b). The remainder
is given by (15)
The factor and contains the transmission zeros.
is an even polynomial, contains any additional RHP zeros
(if any) introduced by subtracting , and can be defined so
that . What about ? We note the following:
which is a capacitor connected across the output of the non- 1) The function is odd with all its poles on . Its
reciprocal type C section. The circuit employs two capacitors finite poles must coincide with those of , and
and no inductors. Gyrators can do curious things. are, therefore, simple. The poles of have positive
residues. Therefore, this must be the case for , since
B. Nonreciprocal Type D Section , .
The transfer impedances, , for a reciprocal type 2) The poles of at and are simple and therefore not
D section, each have the same set of four zeros in the plane present in for they already appear to order two in .
with quadrantal symmetry. In the nonreciprocal case, has 3) Therefore must be LPR. It must have a simple zero at
a conjugate pair of zeros, and the negative pair is in . The the origin, so that by cancellation it produces the simple
degree is therefore that of the reciprocal case. By an ad pole in at . It also follows that , otherwise,
hoc procedure, similar to that employed for the type C, we the order of the zero in at would have to exceed
can construct a circuit as candidate for the nonreciprocal type unity (pole in at is simple), contradicting its LPR
D section6 as in Fig. 2(b), with impedance matrix character. We conclude that the are the only RHP
zeros introduced into by subtracting .
4) The residue of at is negative since ,
(22) , and . Similarly, the residue
of the pole of at is negative.
We now establish that the remainder is LPR.
The zeros of transmission are the solutions From (14b), , and using (25),
of . As discussed earlier, at a zero of , a constant.
transmission , the output of the section may be replaced • Referring to (14), has poles at and/or only if
by an open circuit, so that has poles at these points. (The poles of on finite
cancel from and .) In a neighborhood of a pole
(23) at , , and because of the
negative residue (Item 4 above). Therefore, since is a
5 The series inductor can be absorbed into the coupled coil circuit, but still
counts as an extra reactance. 7 Note that the parameters of the nonreciprocal type C and D sections are
6 There are also other possibilities, see [5]. completely determined by si and Z11 (si ).
CARLIN: DARLINGTON SYNTHESIS REVISITED 21

constant unequal) with an RHP zero of transmission. A combined

pair has overall transfer functions ,
and . It is easily shown that
. Therefore, reciprocity holds, and each pair is clearly
a simple pole with positive residue, and similarly for a lossless. Furthermore, the overall transfer impedance has
pole at . its RHP transmission zero(s) paired with the LHP image(s). A
• A pole occurs in for finite when . composite section pair evidently forms a reciprocal type C or
Therefore, in the neighborhood of , D section followed by a realizable remainder, and the result
is proved.

REFERENCES
We have by (26), . In the neighborhood of , [1] S. Darlington, “Synthesis of reactance 4-poles which produce prescribed
, and , with insertion loss characteristics,” J. Math. Phys., vol. 18, no. 4, pp.
257–353, Sept. 1939.
since is LPR, so , . [2] H. J. Carlin and P. P. Civalleri, Wideband Circuit Design. Boca Raton,
Referring to (22) FL: CRC, 1997.
[3] V. Belevitch, Classical Network Theory. San Francisco, CA: Holden
Day, 1968.
[4] P. I. Richards, “Resistor transmission lines,” Proc. IRE, vol. 36, pp.
217–220, Feb. 1948.
[5] D. Hazony, Elements of Network Synthesis. New York: Reinhold,
1963.
where is a squared pure reactance. Thus in
the neighborhood of the pole

Herbert J. Carlin (M’47–SM’50–F’56–LF’83) was

a simple pole with positive residue. Conclusion: is
LPR.
• Finally, we note that because of the presence of
in , the remainder is raised by in degree. But
at and at , so that both
and have the same set of four zeros with quadrantal
symmetry. Cancellation results in a degree reduction of
, a net reduction of . Therefore, the final condition is
verified for the realizability of the nonreciprocal section
extraction from any LPR . programs sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and CRS
Once the nonreciprocal extractions have been established,
it is not difficult to provide an alternate (and mercifully brief)
proof of the cascade synthesis of reciprocal type C and D
sections. Consider a pair of nonreciprocal type C or type D
sections, the members of the pair to be removed in succession
(always realizable). For the first of the pair choose ; France, Switzerland, Great Britain, Canada, Israel, Japan, and China.
the second is set to have (i.e., the gyrator ratios
for the two sections are opposite in sign though generally
born in New York City. He received the Bachelor’s
and Master’s degrees from Columbia University,
New York, NY, and the D.E.E. degree from the
Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (now the Poly-
technic University of New York) in 1947.
After five years at Westinghouse Company, he
joined the Microwave Research Institute (MRI) of
the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn and pursued
research in microwave circuits and network theory
under Ernst Weber and Ronald M. Foster. He later
became Chairman of MRI. In 1966, he joined the Cornell College of
Engineering, Ithaca, NY, as the J. Preston Levis Professor of Engineering, and
was Director of the School of Electrical Engineering until 1975. He retired
from Cornell as Professor Emeritus in 1989 but continued his research under
(the Italian Research Agency). He has published more than 100 technical
papers and is the coauthor with the late Anthony Giordano of the book
Network Theory (1964), and coauthor, with P. P. Civalleri of the book
Wideband Circuit Design (Boca Raton, FL: CRC, 1997). He was awarded
a Senior Research Fellowship by the National Science Foundation (1966),
was a Visiting Professor at MIT (1972–1973), and has held numerous visiting
appointments abroad at universities and research institutions in Italy, Ireland,
Dr. Carlin is a member of the Electromagnetics Academy (Boston), former
Chairman of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (CAS), and has received
the IEEE Centennial Medal (1984).