Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H01—ELECTRIC ELEMENTS
  • H01Q—ANTENNAS, i.e. RADIO AERIALS
  • H01Q1/00—Details of, or arrangements associated with, antennas
  • H01Q1/12—Supports; Mounting means
  • H01Q1/22—Supports; Mounting means by structural association with other equipment or articles
  • H01Q1/24—Supports; Mounting means by structural association with other equipment or articles with receiving set
  • H01Q1/241—Supports; Mounting means by structural association with other equipment or articles with receiving set used in mobile communications, e.g. GSM
  • H01Q1/242—Supports; Mounting means by structural association with other equipment or articles with receiving set used in mobile communications, e.g. GSM specially adapted for hand-held use
  • H01Q1/243—Supports; Mounting means by structural association with other equipment or articles with receiving set used in mobile communications, e.g. GSM specially adapted for hand-held use with built-in antennas
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H01—ELECTRIC ELEMENTS
  • H01Q—ANTENNAS, i.e. RADIO AERIALS
  • H01Q1/00—Details of, or arrangements associated with, antennas
  • H01Q1/36—Structural form of radiating elements, e.g. cone, spiral, umbrella; Particular materials used therewith
  • H01Q1/38—Structural form of radiating elements, e.g. cone, spiral, umbrella; Particular materials used therewith formed by a conductive layer on an insulating support
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H01—ELECTRIC ELEMENTS
  • H01Q—ANTENNAS, i.e. RADIO AERIALS
  • H01Q9/00—Electrically-short antennas having dimensions not more than twice the operating wavelength and consisting of conductive active radiating elements
  • H01Q9/04—Resonant antennas
  • H01Q9/30—Resonant antennas with feed to end of elongated active element, e.g. unipole
  • H01Q9/42—Resonant antennas with feed to end of elongated active element, e.g. unipole with folded element, the folded parts being spaced apart a small fraction of the operating wavelength

Definitions

• FIG. 1 shows a wireless communications device that includes one or more antenna in accordance with the present invention that allows radio communication
• FIG. 2 and 3 illustrate a compact, multi-layer monopole-type antenna structure using low-loss, low-cost plastic substrate stack-up for multi-band applications
• FIG. 4 shows the return loss data in dB and illustrates that the antenna is well matched for dual-band applications;
• FIG. 5 is a far-field plot at 2.45 GHz for the monopole antenna structure with good gain and radiation efficiency
• FIG. 6 illustrates three-metal-layer antenna designs with S-parameter and 3D- gain (dBi) plots.
• FIG. 7 shows the schematic for an ultra-compact, embedded antenna structure using multi-layers of metal patterns and thru-metal vias on a low-loss, low-cost plastic substrate stack-up.
• the present invention as described herein shows multi-band Front End Modules (FEMs) incorporating a multi-layer plastic substrate technology for wireless applications.
• the FEM includes the PA, required matching and filtering, and Transmit/Receive (T/R) modules for broadband or dual direction applications.
• T/R Transmit/Receive
• the plastic substrate stack-up provides a positive impact on the module overall size, cost, and functionality.
• FIG. 1 shows a wireless communications device 10 that includes one or more antenna structures 14 fabricated on the multi-layer plastic substrate that allow radios to communication with other over-the-air communication devices.
• Antenna structure 14 in accordance with the present invention is an embedded antenna(s) using the multi-metal layers from RF front-end module packaging substrate stack-up that result in an ultra-small form size.
• communications device 10 may operate as a cellular device or a device that operates in wireless networks such as, for example, Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) that provides the underlying technology of Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) based on the IEEE 802.11 specifications, WiMax and Mobile WiMax based on IEEE 802.16-2005, Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), and Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) networks, although the present invention is not limited to operate in only these networks.
• Wi-Fi Wireless Fidelity
• WLAN Wireless Local Area Network
• WiMax WirelessMax
• WCDMA Wideband Code Division Multiple Access
• GSM Global System for Mobile Communications
• analog front end transceiver 12 may be a stand-alone Radio Frequency (RF) discrete or integrated analog circuit, or transceiver 12 may be embedded with a processor having one or more processor cores 16 and 18.
• the multiple cores allow processing workloads to be shared across the cores and handle baseband functions and application functions. Data may transfer through an interface between the processor and memory storage in a system memory 20.
• FIG. 2 illustrates a compact, multi-layer monopole-type antenna structure 14 using a low-loss, low-cost substrate stack-up that is useful for multi-band applications.
• the multi-layer substrate stack-up can be a low-loss plastic substrate stack-up, a polymer substrate stack-up, or a thin material organic substrate stack-up suitable for FEMs.
• multi-metal layers from a high-performance substrate stack-up traditionally have been used for embedded lumped elements such as, for example, inductors and capacitors, etc
• the present invention uses similar metal structures to show small high-performance antenna structures that maintain multi-band antenna characteristics.
• the ultra-compact antennas described in the present invention have excellent gain and an input matching that is desirable for ultra-mobile device type small- form factor environments.
• the substrate stack-up includes a number of substrates 212, 214, ..., 216, etc., having patterned metal layer lines formed on surfaces of the substrates.
• the intermediate dielectrics between the metal layers have low-loss characteristics and are suitable for high-performance antenna applications.
• the monopole-type antenna structure utilizes the patterns and ground plane from the radio- front-end board as well as grounds from different parts of the small form-factor mobile wireless device-type mechanical structures. Any ground surface from a small-form- factor platform or radio design may be utilized to embed these antennas. The grounds for these very small-size antennas can be accessed by using insulated metal thru-via structures.
• FIG. 3 illustrates several layers of the substrate stack-up to show metal lines on surfaces of different substrate layers that may be connected by thru- and blind- vias 226 to form the antenna structures.
• substrate stack-ups having two, three, four, five, or six metal layers to achieve the multi- frequency band operation, although the number of substrate layers in the stack-up and the number of metal layers used to form the antenna structures is not limiting to the present invention.
• the combination of the metal layers patterned on the various substrates produces a structure that may be used, for example, to achieve multi-band, high-gain performance antennas with sizes less than 30 sq.mm on a 0.5 mm substrate stack-up for WLAN type applications.
• a first metal layer line 222 is patterned on substrate 212 and a second metal layer line 224 is patterned on a substrate 214.
• a via 226 is etched or formed in substrate 212 to provide the low impedance electrical connection of the first metal layer line 222 to the second metal layer line 224.
• Mutual inductances and capacitances between the multi-metal-layer lines such as lines 222 and 224 are utilized to define an operating frequency and an optimum bandwidth in multi-layer antenna structure 14.
• first metal layer 222 and second metal layer 224 (briefly see FIG. 3) and the spacing between the lines can be optimized to achieve good radiation patterns at desired frequency bands in a small form-factor environment.
• Metal transmission line structures with 50 ohm impedances excite the antenna input, and results show that an antenna size of approximately 6.5 x 6.6 x 0.5 cubic mm size provides multi-frequency band operation and operates at both 2.4 GHz and 5.5 GHz frequency bands. The bandwidth can be increased by modifying the metal line widths and the metal patterns of this antenna structure.
• FIG. 5 is a far-field plot at 2.45 GHz for the monopole antenna structure 14 with 6.14 dBi gain and excellent radiation efficiency.
• the performance presented in this figure is for a two-layer antenna structure illustrated in FIGs. 3 and 4.
• the antenna structure exhibits radiation at the fringing fields that results in a certain far-field radiation pattern. This radiation pattern shows that the antenna radiates more power in a certain direction than another direction.
• the antenna is said to have certain directivity as is commonly expressed in dB.
• FIG. 6 illustrates three-metal-layer Wi-Fi and WiMax antenna designs with S- parameter and 3D- gain (dBi) plots.
• the figure presents an antenna with 2.5 GHz and 5.5 GHz Wi-Fi dual-bands achieving a gain of 2.58 dBi at 2.5 GHz.
• the figure also presents a 3-layer antenna for the 3.5 GHz WiMax band with 3.7 dBi gain.
• the antennas cover the entire bandwidth of the Wi-Fi and WiMAX bands and demonstrate a return loss of less than -10 dB.
• FIG. 7 shows the electromagnetic simulation schematic for an ultra-compact, embedded antenna structure using 4-layers of metal patterns and thru-metal vias on a low-loss, low-cost plastic substrate stack-up.
• the figure shows the metal patterns and connecting metal-vias that form the 4-layer antenna.
• LTCC Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramic
• LTCC materials have a higher dielectric-constant that impacts the radiation efficiency and impedance bandwidth of an antenna because of pronounced surface wave excitations in higher dielectric material, resulting in degradation in radiation patterns.
• the loss characteristics of LTCC materials are higher than or comparable to the organic plastic substrate materials due to the screen printed Ag metal definition.
• embodiments of the present invention allow low-cost antennas to operate on different platforms and be integrated with multi-radio System-On-Packages (SOP).
• SOP System-On-Packages
• Future wireless systems will include multiple radios and integration of multiple-band antennas to handle WLAN, WiMax, BT, GPS, DVBH, among others.
• These thin and light mechanical casings will require ultra-small antenna architectures integrated with the radio.
• These antennas can be monolithically integrated with the front-end-modules (FEM) of the multi-radio architectures for ultra-small form factor mobile device type applications to reduce cost and enhance performance.

Landscapes

• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Computer Networks & Wireless Communication (AREA)
• Details Of Aerials (AREA)
• Variable-Direction Aerials And Aerial Arrays (AREA)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Publications (1)

Family

ID=40567740

Family Applications (1)

Country Status (4)

Cited By (2)

Families Citing this family (1)

Family Cites Families (14)

• 2008
  • 2008-10-10 WO PCT/US2008/079561 patent/WO2009052029A1/en not_active Ceased
  • 2008-10-10 EP EP08840186A patent/EP2201642A1/de not_active Withdrawn
  • 2008-10-10 JP JP2010530039A patent/JP5212871B2/ja not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 2008-10-10 CN CN200880112595A patent/CN101828301A/zh active Pending

Non-Patent Citations (1)

Also Published As

Similar Documents

Legal Events