Will the iPhone support 5G? Apple's new patent is exposed

According to Patently Apple, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently authorized Apple a new patent involving an iPhone that supports 5G centimeter waves and millimeter waves.

Image source: Patently Apple

Apple points out in the patent document that it is possible to support spatial ranging operations at millimeter wave and centimeter wave frequencies between 10 GHz and 300 GHz. However, if operated improperly, the wireless circuit will exhibit insufficient bandwidth to perform satisfactory spatial ranging operations at these frequencies. Therefore, Apple hopes to provide electronic devices with wireless circuits that support millimeter wave and centimeter wave spatial ranging operations at relatively high bandwidths.

Image source: Patently Apple

It is reported that Apple's invention covers wireless and control circuits that can perform spatial ranging operations using a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radio detection and ranging (RADAR) scheme.

In detail, the wireless circuit may include a radio frequency integrated circuit having a transmit port and a receive port. The millimeter wave and centimeter wave transceiver circuit may be formed on the radio frequency integrated circuit. A phase and amplitude controller may be coupled to each transmit and receive port. The wireless circuit may include a phased antenna array coupled to the radio frequency integrated circuit.

The first and second stacked patch antennas can configure a phased antenna array to support a relatively wide bandwidth, such as a bandwidth greater than 1 GHz. This can allow the iPhone to perform spatial ranging operations over a relatively wide frequency range (e.g., from 57 GHz to 61 GHz).