5G Antenna Design: Antenna Multiplexer Utilization

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5G Antenna Design: Antenna Multiplexer Utilization [Copy link]

Mobile phone design trends make it increasingly difficult to meet these requirements by adding antennas, but still find ways to support new RF standards and meet multi-band coexistence expansion requirements.

A typical 4G phone already contains four to eight antennas, and 5G phones will need even more. At the same time, the space available for antennas in 5G phones is actually shrinking as manufacturers add other new features to the phones, such as additional cameras, facial recognition and motion sensing capabilities.

As the number of antennas increases and the space available for the antennas decreases, it becomes more difficult to maintain the antenna efficiency and isolation required to meet the performance requirements of mobile phones.

Proportional relationship between loss, frequency of use and antenna area

Growing RF Complexity Creates Antenna Design Issues

The RF complexity of 5G phones has increased dramatically with the addition of new 5G bands and requirements such as 4x4 multiple-input/multiple-output (MIMO), EUTRA dual connectivity (EN Dc)/dual UL, mmWave, and emerging standards such as UWB. At the same time, 5G phones must continue to support all existing and reallocated low- , mid- , and high - band frequencies of 4G phones, as well as other requirements such as GPS Level 5 (L5) , GPS/GNSS , 2.4 GHz , and 5 to 7 GHz Wi-Fi (Wi-Fi 6E) .

The challenges of increasing the number of antennas in mobile phones

Even with new RF requirements and standards, it is becoming increasingly difficult to increase the number of antennas while maintaining adequate antenna performance due to trends in smartphone and device design. Achieving high antenna performance requires adequate antenna capacity and spacing, but evolving smartphone designs actually reduce the space available for antennas.

Solving Antenna Design Problems Using Antenna Multiplexers

Antenna multiplexers that reduce the need for additional antennas and meet coexistence filtering and insertion loss requirements.

Antenna duplexers combine multiple RF filters to support different radio technologies (cellular, Wi-Fi , GPS , UWB ), increasing the number of frequency bands that can share a single antenna. By using antenna duplexers, mobile phones can use existing antenna area more efficiently while adding support for new frequency bands without any impact on existing form factors or functionality.

Antenna duplexers can be combined with other RFFE technologies to further optimize antenna performance and compensate for reduced antenna size.

Antenna tuning Antenna performance can be significantly improved using aperture and impedance tuning capabilities, which compensate for reduced antenna size and allow a single antenna to cover multiple frequency bands.

These multi-filter blocks enable carrier aggregation (CA ) by aggregating multiple frequency bands into a single antenna path.

Using antenna duplexers, Wi-Fi and cellular mid-band and ultra-high-band frequencies can share a single antenna

Advantages of Qorvo Antenna Duplexers
Antenna duplexers offer a range of advantages, including increased design flexibility for handset manufacturers, more efficient use of space, and lower costs.

Design Flexibility

By using antenna duplexers, smartphone manufacturers have more flexibility in their smartphone designs. Fewer antennas means fewer design constraints for manufacturers, making it easier to add additional features and explore innovative form factors, such as folding phones. Fewer antennas also means fewer antenna recesses in the phone case, which allows for a more attractive phone appearance while reducing weak points on the phone case.

Optimizing available antenna size

By using antenna duplexers, manufacturers can make the best use of the available space in a phone: reducing the number of antennas increases phone functionality. Antenna performance and spacing can be optimized.

Reduced onboard RF routing reduces costs

Fewer antennas means less internal wiring, connectors, and springs. Instead of routing separate lines to multiple antennas, you can route one combined line to a single antenna. This saves a lot of space and reduces costs.

A major issue facing all makers of 5G phones and other devices is how to accommodate increasing radio frequency complexity as available antenna area continues to shrink.

Antenna duplexers offer an elegant solution. By using antenna duplexers, manufacturers can continue to add innovative features that appeal to consumers, such as larger batteries and more cameras, while realizing all the benefits of 5G .

Antenna duplexers are particularly useful in 5G antenna design. To learn more, please click to read the original article .

w494143467

Thanks for sharing! Antenna reuse is very useful!

alan000345

w494143467 posted on 2021-1-12 22:22 Thanks for sharing! Antenna reuse is still very useful!

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