Antenna solves triband handset size problems

A novel PCB-mounting antenna that provides handset developers with a very compact means of extending frequency coverage to the 3G reception band.

Antenova has a new PCB-mounting antenna that provides handset developers with a very compact means of extending frequency coverage to the 3G reception band.

The tiny surface-mounting device eliminates the need to add a second conventional antenna into handsets, which can compromise the size of portable terminals.

Handset developers are able to employ the range of conventional triband antennas in the GSM 1900 band to cover the 3G transmit frequencies of 1920 to 1980MHz, but it's proving difficult to create a multiband component of the right size that can also handle 3G's 2110-2170MHz reception band.

Installing a further patch or wire or PIFA antenna into the handset is typically not an option, as the physical dimensions of these components - on top of all the other circuitry needed to implement 3G - can seriously compromise overall product size.

Antenova's 3G antenna, with its mounting footprint of 14 x 9mm and height of 3.5mm, provides a simple solution.

The unique properties of the HDA (high dielectric antenna) technology behind the new solution additionally allows developers to install multiple antennas within millimetres of each other, to implement the emerging technique of 'antenna diversity'.

For the 3G application, antenna diversity can dramatically improve data rate reception speeds by listening in different directions and/or polarizations to capture the multi-path signals that arrive via different routes, and enhance signal to noise ratio.

Several companies are currently working on the algorithms and DSP technology required to exploit multipath signals, a technique which promises to multiply achievable 3G data rates, and allow those high data rates to be delivered much more widely throughout a cell.

Antenna diversity is difficult to achieve on portable terminals using conventional conducting antenna materials as antennas need to be separated by typically a wavelength (around 15cm at 3G frequencies) in order for the near fields not to crosscouple.

The high dielectric properties of an HDA antenna means that its near field is almost completely contained within the antenna, allowing antenna arrays to by mounted within millimetres of each other, directly onto a handset's motherboard.

"The dielectric resonance principle makes antennas exceptionally compact, and very simple to design in", says Colin Ribton, Director of Projects of Antenova.

"The 3G component we're offering provides an immediate solution, and the technology is easily extendable for future variants of handsets that will implement diversity processing".

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