Ceramic patch antenna ground plane

Furthermore, these performance measurements are in reference to those precise ground plane dimensions. Finally, keep in mind that these measurements are from an open space observational point, and your design is most likely an internal product design. The use of a ceramic chip antenna offers several benefits; for example, it eliminates the need for expensive manufacturing of new prototypes as well as limits the necessity for simulation software.

Overall, this is cost-effective because you are not wasting components due to repetitive prototype manufacturing. However, like almost everything else in life, there are trade-offs and adverse side-effects. In the case of the ceramic chip antenna, it comes in the form of disadvantages; they are as follows:. Increased initial cost, due to the purchase price of the ceramic chip antenna and the requirement of its supporting components.

Overall, the ceramic chip antenna allows for greater tuning versatility during development since it is added to the PCB after the design phase completes. Furthermore, they accommodate expedient hardware modifications since they utilize a surface mount configuration. Utilizing a ceramic chip antenna in your design provides more space and openness that permits the use of more components per stack.

Furthermore, this translates into the use of smaller PCBs or the ability to add more components. In either case, it correlates to a more cost-effective overall design. Also, if the design is multilayered or high-volume, the savings will exponentially increase. Furthermore, depending on the type of antenna and your space requirements, the type of trace will vary.

The examples of the types of traces in use for PCB Trace antennas include inverted F-type traces, straight traces, meandered traces, curved traces, or circular traces..

Overall, the purpose of a trace antenna on a PCB is to provide a method of wireless communication. However, in certain instances, these traces will occupy several layers of a multilayered PCB. Also, a keep-out area is a requirement for each antenna on the PCB. Moreover, a keep-out area is a specific area around the PCB Trace antenna that does not allow the use of ground fill or copper traces on any layer of the PCB. Small size is one of the many assets to a chip antenna. In general, a PCB Trace antenna is challenging to implement, design, and tune, especially in a reliable and small implementation.

Furthermore, like a wire antenna, a PCB Trace antenna's size is dependent on the frequencies of the target bandwidth. For example, if your design requires a low frequency, the length of the PCB Trace antenna will be much longer. However, like a coin with two sides, the PCB Trace antenna has advantages as well as disadvantages; the following are its advantages:.

The PCB Trace antenna can operate within a wide bandwidth if optimally tuned. Commands a high level of strength and network reliability if optimally tuned. Highly susceptible to board-layout changes, thus requiring tuning after each change, or remanufacturing.

PCB Trace antennas require more space especially at low frequencies. The requirement of a larger PCB area increases the overall cost of the design particularly at low frequencies. PCB Trace antennas are predisposed to environmental interferences. You cannot physically modify a PCB Trace antenna after the manufacturing process. Therefore, if a modification is required, you will need to change your design and remanufacture the PCB. Also, with its possibly large size and onerous nature of its tuning as well as the design process, the PCB Trace antenna promotes the use of PCB simulation Cadence software and extensive testing.

In recent times, a designer often considered the trade-offs for their targeted frequency range and opted for a more reliable trace antenna instead of a Ceramic Chip antenna. As I am sure you are aware, design requirements will still dictate the type of antenna configuration that best fits your individual needs. Moreover, keep in mind that regardless of choice, trade-offs are almost always a certainty.

Working through antenna designs requires adaptable software that can adapt with quick component decisions and intensive frequency demands, but Cadence has the suite of design and analysis tools you need. Cadence PCB solutions is a complete front to back design tool to enable fast and efficient product creation. Cadence enables users accurately shorten design cycles to hand off to manufacturing through modern, IPC industry standard.

The types of pins used in your circuits impacts everything like signals, temperature, voltage, and current. Here are a few key things to remember to better understand and properly use the PCB via design rules in your circuit board layout. An application that demands all three—CoB, wirebonding, and rigid-flex PCB—is a camera module that goes into a mobile application, the sample design used to illustrate the design and analysis However, in smaller devices higher levels of performance can be achieved in a smaller footprint, and usually at a lower cost through a surface mountable antenna.

For effective performance, ceramic patch antennas need to be pointed upwards wherever possible. For applications that run parallel to the horizon — like most cars and drones — this may not become an issue. When placed in an appropriate location, ceramic patches will be able to work and function accurately in most cases. However, this limits their usefulness within trackers, wearables, handheld devices and other complex devices that require an antenna with low directivity.

When not facing the sky, ceramic patch antenna may suffer from a prolonged time-to-first-fix , limiting the function of a device. Position drifting may also occur, which can result from the highly reflective nature of GNSS signals. GNSS operate across a wide range of frequency bands, yet many devices support multiple systems. But achieving sufficient performance across varying wavelengths can become more difficult with small ceramic patches. In applications smaller than 25mm 2 , ceramic patches will only effectively operate on narrow frequency bands.

As the ceramic acts as a gateway for RF signal, the larger the patch, the wider range of bands the antenna can effectively operate on. By contrast, a surface mountable antenna can work effectively on these wide frequency bands. Depending on your application, this may not pose design issues. For instance, a device operating parallel to the horizon that only needs to support a single frequency may find a small ceramic patch to provide sufficient performance.

Due to the size of the wavelengths, a larger than normal ground plane size will be necessary for embedded applications. Typically, this will be upwards of 60 x 60mm, and even higher in some cases. The nature of the frequency makes it more vital that these guidelines are followed, however, ceramic patch antenna may differ in this regard; ceramic patch antennas generally require symmetrical dimensions of ground plane on each side of the antenna.

Surface-mountable antennas have more variation in their recommended placement - some of which recommend placement on the corner of the PCB. It is important, that during antenna selection, you do not purely review datasheets and select the antenna that provides the highest performance parameters. What is more important is that you select an antenna appropriate to your design, so that the challenges in integration are minimised.

By their very nature, GNSS frequency bands are difficult to design for. Particularly in small devices, where a whole host of issues can arise during development.