Advances in High-Performance Ceramic Antennas for Small-Form-Factors

Two trends are well underway in portable and handheld consumer electronic devices: shrinking form factors and the integration of multiple wireless technologies, such as Bluetooth™, cellular, GPS and Wi-Fi. These trends create challenges for device vendors and integrators by increasing the likelihood of RF noise and other system interactions that can undermine antenna performance.

This issue creates challenges when developing an RF front end because specification sheets may not include key implementation details, triggering an iterative design cycle to try to improve results. This paper also proposes new approaches for evaluating ceramic antennas for small-form-factor applications such as cell phones. These are necessary because implementations quickly depart from bare-board measurements, thus rendering product datasheets meaningless in terms of accurately predicting real world performance. By offering a simple and fair test method for evaluating ceramic antennas – particularly in terms of their true volume requirements – Ethertronics aims to position ceramic antennas as a viable option for accommodating industry trends toward slim, multi-technology consumer electronics devices.