Antenova, a UK-based manufacturer of antennas and RF antenna modules for M2M and the IoT, has halved the footprint of its 4G cellular antennas with its latest offering, the Pharaoh SMD antenna.
The Pharaoh’s small ground requirement offers designers a huge advantage in designs on a small circuit board, such as miniature pet trackers, wearables or OBD-II designs. Designed for small PCBs, Antenova’s Pharaoh antenna (P/N SR4L073) covers all 4G frequencies: 698 – 824 MHz, 824-960 MHz, 1710-2170 MHz, 2300-2400 MHz and 2500-2690 MHz.
Antenova tested this antenna with evaluation boards of 50 x 40 mm and 60 x 40 mm and claim its performance-to-footprint ratio out-ranked competing 4G antennas for small circuit boards. Other antennas typically require a minimum 60 x 40 mm of space, utilize large and costly band switching networks and display lower levels of efficiency.
The Pharaoh’s performance on small PCBs is above the level required to pass PTCRB tests for cellular networks.
“The performance of an antenna is directly related to the length of its ground plane. At the lowest 4G frequency, 698 MHz, the wavelength λ for electromagnetic radiation is 42.95 cm. Most antennas require a ground plane of a quarter wavelength, which means they need a space of 107 mm to operate effectively. Our Pharaoh antenna smashes this rule and uses about half of this area”, said Michael Castle, Product Marketing Manager at Antenova.
Antenova supplies the Pharaoh SR4L073 antenna with a reference design and matching network to help integrate the antenna into a device and shorten the design cycle. The Pharaoh antenna is the latest addition to Antenova’s product portfolio which includes a range of tiny, embedded antennas for LTE, 5G and LP-WAN.
Antenova is committed to helping customers integrate embedded antennas into devices of all kinds and provides consultancy and testing services and a selection of online tools and calculators to help designers develop a high-performance wireless device.
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