Abstract
This study describes an application of the Taguchi method in optimizing the fused process parameters that have been made in the development of fused bi-conic taper couplers, to improve the performance and reliability of the 1% (1/99) single-window broadband tap coupler. A Taguchi L 18 (2 1 × 3 7 ) orthogonal array is used to study the effects of six control factors on the six interested responses. Implementation results reveal that the Taguchi method outperforms the traditional engineering judgment method. This study has now been extensively and successfully used to develop the optimal fuse parameters for other coupling ratio tap couplers such as 2/98, 3/97, 4/96, ..., 50/50.