Method and system of fabricating and tuning surface integrated waveguide filter

A method of fabricating a surface integrated waveguide (SIW) filter, comprising:

• covering upper and lower surfaces of a dielectric substrate with a metallic layer to form upper and lower conductive layers and forming input and output ports;
• drilling a plurality of vias on the dielectric substrate in a predetermined geometric organization, and covering inner surfaces of the vias with the metallic layer to provide conduction paths between the upper and lower conductive layers, wherein a first group of vias forms one or more cavity resonators, a second group of vias defines coupling channels between the cavity resonators, a third group of vias defines an effective width and a fourth group of vias defines an effective length of the cavity resonators, and wherein the cavity resonators are electromagnetically coupled through the coupling channels and couple the input and output ports;
• applying an input signal having selected frequencies at the input port and propagating the input signal through the SIW filter and providing an output signal at the output port;
• determining if the center frequency of the output signal is less than a threshold center frequency;
• if the center frequency is less than the threshold center frequency, continuing to increase diameters of the second group of vias incrementally to decrease the width of the coupling channels and evaluating the output signal for each incremental decrease of the width of the coupling channels until the center frequency is greater than or equal to the threshold center frequency;
• if the center frequency is greater than or equal to the threshold center frequency, evaluating the output signal to determine if a roll-off is less than a threshold roll-off;
• and
• if the roll-off is less than the threshold roll-off, continuing to increase diameters of the third and fourth groups of vias incrementally to decrease the effective width and the effective length of the cavity resonators and evaluating the output signal for each incremental decrease of the effective width and the effective length until the roll-off is greater than or equal to the threshold roll-off.