|Número de publicación||US6995710 B2|
|Tipo de publicación||Concesión|
|Número de solicitud||US 10/267,048|
|Fecha de publicación||7 Feb 2006|
|Fecha de presentación||9 Oct 2002|
|Fecha de prioridad||9 Oct 2001|
|También publicado como||US20030092420|
|Número de publicación||10267048, 267048, US 6995710 B2, US 6995710B2, US-B2-6995710, US6995710 B2, US6995710B2|
|Inventores||Noriyasu Sugimoto, Takashi Kanamori, Daisuke Nakata, Susumu Wakamatsu, Toshikatsu Takada|
|Cesionario original||Ngk Spark Plug Co., Ltd.|
|Exportar cita||BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan|
|Citas de patentes (28), Citada por (28), Clasificaciones (7), Eventos legales (5)|
|Enlaces externos: USPTO, Cesión de USPTO, Espacenet|
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an antenna in use for wireless communication, and in particular, to a dielectric antenna having a so-called meander line configuration formed on a dielectric substrate for use in high frequency wireless communication.
2. Related Art
An antenna is an indispensable constituent element in wireless communication but has the disadvantage of consuming or occupying substantial space, relatively speaking. To reduce the size of the antenna, known antenna configurations use a dielectric material and form an antenna line on or within the dielectric material. An example of antennas according to this prior art is described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 13126/1998. To suppress or reduce exothermy (heat evolution) resulting from a power loss from a radiation electrode and to provide an antenna having reduced wavelength fluctuation, the antenna has a construction as shown in
When the size of the antenna is reduced to provide miniaturization, i.e., to satisfy a space requirement, the width of the antenna line, i.e., the conductor forming the antenna, becomes quite small. When the antenna line is of a linear shape, the physical length of the antenna must increase. Therefore, to save space, the antenna line is formed in an undulating shape, such as is illustrated, for example, in Japanese Patent No. 3,114,582 and Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 55618/1997 and 139621/1997. In such antennas, the line width of the antenna is likely to be further reduced in order to provide a decrease in antenna length by use of the undulating shape.
Generally speaking, the greater the number of components, the greater the size of the antenna because of the need for impedance matching. Moreover, impedance mismatching with the line on the component packaging substrate is more likely to occur, thereby resulting in deterioration of the radio wave radiation characteristics. In other words, it is more difficult to efficiently transmit the high frequency signals supplied from a feed terminal to the antenna line. The length of the antenna line is generally adjusted to control such impedance mismatching. However, given ever more demanding space requirements, i.e., due to the need for miniaturization, the antenna line length cannot always be arbitrarily changed. Further, while it is known to insert a matching circuit between the line on the component packaging substrate side and the antenna line, the addition of such a matching circuit tends to increase production costs and to consume excessive space, which is, of course, contrary to the need for miniaturization.
There are various factors causing impedance mismatching between the antenna line and the feed terminal portion. For instance, when, due to design limitations, the antenna line width is different from the width of a feed strip line for signal transmission, and particularly when the width of the antenna line is smaller than that of the feed strip due to miniaturization of the antenna, a problem with impedance mismatching is most likely to occur.
It is an object of the invention to provide a dielectric antenna which is capable of eliminating impedance mismatching resulting from miniaturization of the antenna without the addition of a special matching circuit, and which is thus capable of efficiently and economically preventing a drop in the efficiency of radiation of radio waves, resulting from impedance mismatches.
The above object of the present invention is achieved by providing, in accordance with a first aspect thereof, a dielectric antenna for a high frequency wireless communication apparatus, comprising: a dielectric substrate; a conductive meander line layer formed on the dielectric substrate; a conductive feed line layer formed on the dielectric substrate and having a greater line width than the width of the meander line layer; and a conductive taper layer connecting the conductive meander line layer to the conductive feed line layer, said conductive layer of the conductive taper layer having a slanting edge forming an angle γ with an adjacent edge of the conductive feed line layer in a direction toward the conductive meander line layer, the angle γ comprising an angle of 110°–175°.
In this embodiment, formation of the conductive taper layer effectively achieves impedance matching without affecting the space savings provided by miniaturization of the antenna, and provides excellent radio wave radiation characteristics.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, the dielectric antenna comprises first and second conductor portions formed on a dielectric substrate of the antenna and electrically connected to each other through a connection conductor portion having a tapered shape that expands in width at a predetermined taper angle from the first conductor portion side towards the second conductor portion side. When the taper angle of this connection conductor portion is 5° to 70° (preferably 8° to 68° and, more preferably, 10° to 60°), the antenna suppresses impedance mismatching and efficiently radiates the high frequency signals.
According to yet another aspect of the invention, the above object of the invention is achieved by providing a dielectric antenna for high frequency wireless communication apparatus, the antenna comprising: a dielectric substrate; a conductive meander line layer formed on the dielectric substrate; a conductive feed line layer formed on the dielectric substrate and having a greater line width than the width of the meander line layer; and an extended feed line extending from a feed strip formed on a surface of a further dielectric substrate having a dielectric constant lower than the dielectric constant of the dielectric substrate and having a ground plane on a further, opposed surface of the further dielectric substrate, the extended feed line being extended by a predetermined length from a position at which the ground electrode terminates and is separated by the further dielectric substrate; the predetermined length being about 2.5–7.5 mm.
In this aspect of the invention, the impedance mismatch caused by the difference in specific dielectric constant between the dielectric substrate on which the feed strip is formed and the dielectric substrate on which the antenna comprising the meander line layer is formed is effectively eliminated by the provision of the extended feed line.
In accordance with still another aspect of the invention, improved matching is attained by combining important features of the embodiments of the invention described above.
According to yet another aspect of the invention, various dimensional factors and relationships relating to the meander antenna line are provided which improve the performance of the dielectric antenna.
Further features and advantages of the present invention will be set forth in, or apparent from, the detailed description of preferred embodiments thereof which follows.
An embodiment according to a first aspect of the invention will be explained with reference to the drawings, and in particular, in relation to
The feed layer 204 and the feed terminal 205 have a common line width (Wz) that is greater than the width (w) of the meander line layer 202. As illustrated, the line width of the taper layer 203 increases from the meander line layer 202 toward the feed line layer 204. In other words, if the meander line edge 212A extends parallel to the longitudinal axis of the meander line (or, stated differently, extends parallel to the longitudinal axis of the dielectric substrate), as shown in
The antenna 1, having the construction described above, advantageously provides suppression of impedance mismatching occurring at the junction between the meander line layer portion 202 and the feed line layer portion 203, and also enables efficient transmission of the radio frequency signals from the feed terminal 205. Because impedance matching between an antenna portion (i.e., the meander line pattern portion) and a conductor portion (i.e., the feed portion) can be established through such simple construction, the design of the antenna conductive line pattern is simplified. Further, because the feed terminal 205 at the end surface of the dielectric substrate 2 has the same line width as that of the feed line layer 204, impedance mismatches at the junction between the feed line layer 204 and the feed terminal 205 can also be eliminated, and radio frequency signals can be efficiently transmitted or received through the feed terminal 205.
Dielectric antennas corresponding to those described above have been prepared for experimental use as follows, using a configuration as shown in
In this way, there are produced five kinds of antennas for a 5.2 GHz band, each having a different taper angle α and each being of a similar configuration to that of
For comparison purposes, an antenna was produced having an antenna line pattern including the first conductor portion 202 having the same line width (w), the same line spacing (s) and the same fold-back width (d) as those of the embodiment described above and a feed line layer 204 having the same line width (w2) as that of these embodiment but having angles α and γ of 90° (in other words, with taper layer or portion 203 eliminated).
In the comparison testing, each of the antennas is bonded to an evaluation substrate, and its reflection coefficient at 5.2 GHz is measured by use of a network analyzer. Table 1 below is a tabulation of the result.
Taper angle α(°)
It will be understood from Table 2 that all of the examples having a tapered shape, i.e., including the taper layer or portion 203, identified as Examples 1–5, show an improvement in the reflection coefficient and the transmission efficiency as compared with the example not having the taper and identified as the Comparative Example. It was also confirmed that the difference in the taper shape between
A longitudinally extending feed line 10 e extends from a feed strip 10 to the feed terminal 205 by a predetermined length, denoted β, from a position corresponding to a boundary line (BL) located between the region of the back conductor layer 11 and the region where the back conductor layer 11 is not formed. A surface packaging pad 5 is formed on the back of the dielectric antenna 1, for securely connecting the feed terminal 205 to the end of the extended feed line 10 e through a solder bonding portion 9. An auxiliary pad 6 is formed on the back of the dielectric substrate 2 so as to bonded to a support pad 15 formed on the substrate 42 through the solder bonding portion 9.
The extended feed line 10 e is important in reducing or preventing impedance mismatching between the dielectric antenna 1 and the feed strip 10 through which electrical signals are transmitted and received. As described above, conventionally, a matching component is provided between the dielectric antenna and the feed strip. Such a matching component is unnecessary if the feed line 10 is incorporated in the dielectric substrate 42 of the circuit module 41, where substrate 42 has a lower specific dielectric constant than that of the dielectric substrate 2 of the dielectric antenna 1.
As can be understood from the graph of
Further, as shown in
An explanation will be provided based on the results of experiments carried out to examine the influences of the meandering or fold-back width (d). First, in these experiments, an alumina substrate (thickness: 1 mm) is used as the dielectric antenna substrate 2. Dielectric antennas having a total line length of 30 mm are produced wherein the fold-back width (d), the line width (w) and the facing edge spacing (s) are changed in various combinations. Each of these antennas is connected to a network analyzer (HP-8510C, produced by Hewlett Packard Co.) and the reflection coefficient S11 of the various antennas at 2.4 GHz is measured.
Line (d = 1)
Line (d = 2)
Line (d = 3)
Line (d = 5)
It will be understood from these experimental results, as tabulated in Table 2, that the smaller the line width (w), the smaller the reflection coefficient (S11), regardless of the line width (w) and the opposing edge spacing (s), and the radiation efficiency of the radio wave is improved. It will be also understood that when the fold-back width (d) is smaller than 3 mm, an antenna gain value of −8 dB or below, i.e., that of a sufficient value, can be attained.
When the specific dielectric constant of the dielectric material forming the antenna substrate 2 is increased, the antenna length can be decreased. However, this results in a decrease in the radiation efficiency of the radio wave and/or a more narrow bandwidth due to a no-load increase in some cases. In view of this, the dielectric material forming the antenna substrate 2 preferably has specific dielectric constant of not greater than 13 at 2.4 GHz. Alumina ceramics having an alumina content of at least 98%, mullite ceramics or glass ceramics can be appropriately used in the substrate of the invention as materials having a small dielectric loss in a high frequency range. Among the glass ceramics, a ceramics system prepared by adding 40 to 60 parts by weight of an inorganic filler, such as alumina, to borosilicate glass or lead borosilicate glass is preferably used because such a composition has a good co-firing property with a metal line or element formed thereon or therein. Further, inorganic/organic composite materials, such as glass epoxy materials, can be used in place of the ceramic dielectric materials.
The result of experiments conducted to examine the influence of the use of specific dielectric constants will next be explained. In these experiments, the following materials are prepared as the material of the antenna substrate 2 of the dielectric antenna 1 of the type shown in
Various dielectric antennas were produced by using the antenna substrates 2 described above and, referring to
Referring again to
A concrete example will now be considered. A fired alumina body (width: 3 mm, length: 15 mm, thickness: 1 mm) is used as the dielectric material forming the antenna substrate 2 of the dielectric antenna 1 shown in
In the next step, the dielectric antenna 1 is surface-packaged, i.e., mounted, using a solder, to the feed strip 10 on the packaging substrate in the form shown in
Referring again to
Because the antenna line pattern 3 is of an undulating shape, the overall antenna length, L, can effectively be decreased. As can be clearly seen in the drawings, it is geometrically impossible to make fold-back width (d) smaller than line width (w). As shown in
Referring again to
As shown in
In contrast to the situation described above, when a manufacturing method is employed which fires the antenna substrate 2 and then forms the antenna line pattern 3 through a secondary metallizing treatment of the antenna line pattern 3 on the main surface MP of the antenna substrate 2, a metal having a lower melting point can be economically used as the line metal material. More specifically, a pattern can be printed by use of a metal paste having a relatively low melting point, such as an Ag type paste. The paste is applied to the antenna substrate 2 after baking, and is baked secondarily at a temperature which is lower than the firing temperature of the dielectric material and at which sufficient baking of the metal paste occurs. A chemical plating method or a physical vacuum deposition method can also be used to form the line pattern. Concrete examples include low resistance materials selected from the group consisting of an Ag type (Ag single substance, Ag-metal oxides (oxides of Mn, V, Bi, Al, Si and Cu), Ag-glass addition, Ag—Pd, Ag—Pt, Ag—Rh, etc), and a Cu type (Cu single substance, Cu-metal oxides, Cu—Pd, Cu—Pt, Cu—Rh, etc). It is noted that it is also possible to cover the antenna line pattern 3 formed on the main surface MP of the antenna substrate 2 with a protective dielectric layer (typically 5 to 50 μm-thick) formed of a polymer or a low temperature baking type ceramic material such as a glass ceramic.
As described above, in the antenna line pattern 3 shown in
Considering the importance of reducing the antenna length in more detail,
When a typical existing mono-pole antenna is formed on a printed board for component packaging, the antenna length necessary for attaining a resonance frequency of 2.4 GHz can be as large as 27 mm. It will be understood from
The opposing edge spacing (s) between the adjacent orthogonal line elements 32 in
Although antennas according to different embodiments of the invention have been explained and discussed above, the antennas of the invention are not specifically limited to these embodiments but can, of course, be appropriately changed or modified without departing from the scope of the invention. For example, although the conductor portion 220 of antenna line pattern of the antenna 1 has a meander shape, this portion may have other shapes, such as a spiral. Further, although the conductor portion 220 is shown as being formed on the outer surface of the dielectric substrate 2, portion 220 may also be formed inside, and outside, the dielectric substrate 2.
|Patente citada||Fecha de presentación||Fecha de publicación||Solicitante||Título|
|US5581262||6 Feb 1995||3 Dic 1996||Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.||Surface-mount-type antenna and mounting structure thereof|
|US5764198||20 Sep 1996||9 Jun 1998||Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd.||Chip antenna|
|US5767811||16 Sep 1996||16 Jun 1998||Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd.||Chip antenna|
|US5767817||22 Ago 1996||16 Jun 1998||Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd.||Antenna apparatus having chip antenna and capacitance generating device|
|US5798737||17 Nov 1997||25 Ago 1998||Murata Mfg. Co., Ltd.||Chip antenna|
|US5892490||3 Nov 1997||6 Abr 1999||Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.||Meander line antenna|
|US5898413||19 Dic 1997||27 Abr 1999||Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.||Surface mount antenna|
|US5909198 *||18 Dic 1997||1 Jun 1999||Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.||Chip antenna|
|US5973651||16 Sep 1997||26 Oct 1999||Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.||Chip antenna and antenna device|
|US5999146||9 Sep 1997||7 Dic 1999||Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.||Antenna device|
|US6052096||7 Ago 1996||18 Abr 2000||Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.||Chip antenna|
|US6064351||4 Mar 1998||16 May 2000||Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.||Chip antenna and a method for adjusting frequency of the same|
|US6222489||15 Mar 2000||24 Abr 2001||Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.||Antenna device|
|US6271803 *||30 Jun 1999||7 Ago 2001||Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.||Chip antenna and radio equipment including the same|
|US6351241||1 Sep 1999||26 Feb 2002||Allgon Ab||Meander antenna device|
|US6442399||17 Feb 2000||27 Ago 2002||Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.||Mobile communication apparatus|
|US6515626 *||21 Dic 2000||4 Feb 2003||Hyundai Electronics Industries||Planar microstrip patch antenna for enhanced antenna efficiency and gain|
|US6693604 *||12 Oct 2001||17 Feb 2004||The Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd.||Small antenna|
|US6720924 *||5 Feb 2002||13 Abr 2004||The Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd.||Antenna apparatus|
|US6768460 *||28 Mar 2001||27 Jul 2004||Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.||Diversity wireless device and wireless terminal unit|
|US6781557 *||30 Oct 2000||24 Ago 2004||Mitsubishi Materials||Antenna formed from a plurality of stacked bases|
|EP0762539A1||14 Ago 1996||12 Mar 1997||Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.||Chip antenna|
|JP2996190B2||Título no disponible|
|JPH08222944A||Título no disponible|
|JPH08335822A||Título no disponible|
|JPH09139621A||Título no disponible|
|JPH10229304A||Título no disponible|
|JPH10247806A||Título no disponible|
|Patente citante||Fecha de presentación||Fecha de publicación||Solicitante||Título|
|US7307597 *||16 Mar 2005||11 Dic 2007||Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.||Antenna|
|US7443357 *||28 Sep 2005||28 Oct 2008||Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.||Planar inverted-F antenna|
|US7589679 *||23 Dic 2006||15 Sep 2009||Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.||Antenna device|
|US7701404 *||19 Dic 2003||20 Abr 2010||Bae Systems Information And Electronic Systems Integration Inc.||Method and apparatus for limiting VSWR spikes in a compact broadband meander line loaded antenna assembly|
|US8421686 *||16 Abr 2013||Fractus, S.A.||Radio-frequency system in package including antenna|
|US8466756||17 Abr 2008||18 Jun 2013||Pulse Finland Oy||Methods and apparatus for matching an antenna|
|US8473017||14 Abr 2008||25 Jun 2013||Pulse Finland Oy||Adjustable antenna and methods|
|US8564485||13 Jul 2006||22 Oct 2013||Pulse Finland Oy||Adjustable multiband antenna and methods|
|US8618990||13 Abr 2011||31 Dic 2013||Pulse Finland Oy||Wideband antenna and methods|
|US8629813||20 Ago 2008||14 Ene 2014||Pusle Finland Oy||Adjustable multi-band antenna and methods|
|US8648752||11 Feb 2011||11 Feb 2014||Pulse Finland Oy||Chassis-excited antenna apparatus and methods|
|US8786499||20 Sep 2006||22 Jul 2014||Pulse Finland Oy||Multiband antenna system and methods|
|US8847833||29 Dic 2009||30 Sep 2014||Pulse Finland Oy||Loop resonator apparatus and methods for enhanced field control|
|US8866689||7 Jul 2011||21 Oct 2014||Pulse Finland Oy||Multi-band antenna and methods for long term evolution wireless system|
|US8988296||4 Abr 2012||24 Mar 2015||Pulse Finland Oy||Compact polarized antenna and methods|
|US9077073||18 May 2012||7 Jul 2015||Fractus, S.A.||Integrated circuit package including miniature antenna|
|US9123990||7 Oct 2011||1 Sep 2015||Pulse Finland Oy||Multi-feed antenna apparatus and methods|
|US9203154||12 Ene 2012||1 Dic 2015||Pulse Finland Oy||Multi-resonance antenna, antenna module, radio device and methods|
|US9246210||7 Feb 2011||26 Ene 2016||Pulse Finland Oy||Antenna with cover radiator and methods|
|US20050206574 *||16 Mar 2005||22 Sep 2005||Motoyuki Okayama||Antenna|
|US20060145925 *||28 Sep 2005||6 Jul 2006||Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd||Planar inverted-F antenna|
|US20060256029 *||19 Dic 2003||16 Nov 2006||Mckivergan Patrick D||Method and apparatus for limiting vswr spikes in a compact broadband meander line loaded antenna assembly|
|US20080036666 *||23 Dic 2006||14 Feb 2008||Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.||Antenna device|
|US20080278377 *||4 Jun 2007||13 Nov 2008||Vance Scott Ladell||Multi-band antenna|
|US20100220016 *||20 Sep 2006||2 Sep 2010||Pertti Nissinen||Multiband Antenna System And Methods|
|US20100244978 *||17 Abr 2008||30 Sep 2010||Zlatoljub Milosavljevic||Methods and apparatus for matching an antenna|
|US20100328185 *||28 Jul 2010||30 Dic 2010||Jordi Soler Castany||Radio-frequency system in package including antenna|
|US20110156972 *||29 Dic 2009||30 Jun 2011||Heikki Korva||Loop resonator apparatus and methods for enhanced field control|
|Clasificación de EE.UU.||343/700.0MS|
|Clasificación internacional||H01Q1/38, H01Q11/14|
|Clasificación cooperativa||H01Q11/14, H01Q1/38|
|Clasificación europea||H01Q11/14, H01Q1/38|
|28 Ene 2003||AS||Assignment|
Owner name: NGK SPARK PLUG CO., LTD., JAPAN
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:SUGIMOTO, NORIYASU;NAKATA, DAISUKE;TAKADA, TOSHIKATSU;AND OTHERS;REEL/FRAME:013706/0820;SIGNING DATES FROM 20030110 TO 20030113
|8 Jul 2009||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 4
|20 Sep 2013||REMI||Maintenance fee reminder mailed|
|7 Feb 2014||LAPS||Lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees|
|1 Abr 2014||FP||Expired due to failure to pay maintenance fee|
Effective date: 20140207