10 Jul 2012

Antenova releases Global LTE antenna reference design for Smartphones

Antenova has releases a LTE Antenna Reference Design for Smartphones which covers the global LTE bands.

The wideband and efficient antenna design is said to overcome the difficulty of covering all the LTE frequency bands without the use of switches or tunable active components, resulting in a significantly lower cost LTE MIMO (Multiple-In-Multiple-Out) antenna system for smartphones.

"LTE is the fastest developing mobile system technology ever and is on every mobile device makers' roadmap, however the goal of a truly global LTE smartphone imposes great challenges on the antenna system," stated Greg McCray, CEO of Antenova. "While the current majority of LTE user devices operate in the 700 MHz band, which has been heavily driven by the US market, rollout of LTE networks in other regions now require devices to operate in the LTE frequency bands utilized in those markets as well."

"Antenova has been working with Tier 1 smartphone, tablet and notebook vendors and providing them with patented and novel LTE antenna solutions with both custom antenna designs and antenna reference designs," he continues.

The A10453 is a fixed frequency LTE antenna that covers LTE 700, GSM850, GSM900, DCS1800, PCS1900, WCDMA2100, LTE B7 (2500-2690 MHz), LTE B38 (2570-2620 MHz), and LTE B40 (2300 - 2400 MHz) bands.

When utilized in Antenova's MIMO configuration, the antenna system is said to provide total efficiencies of more than 50% over all bands with an average efficiency over all bands of 61%, and isolation between 2 antenna elements below -10dB over all bands. Return loss is claimed to be better than 6dB over all frequency bands and better than 10dB on LTE B7.

The A10453 can be realised using flexi or LDS on a plastic carrier and customised to fit specific mechanical IDs.

McCray added, "The extremely wide frequency range and MIMO requirements of the LTE specification poses many technical challenges to the antenna design as well as bill of materials (BOM) costs as more active components are normally required to cover all the LTE bands. Antenova has overcome these challenges and can now provide device manufacturers an LTE Antenna Reference Design which provides high efficiency across all LTE bands, a lower BOM cost than active solutions and excellent hand and head performance."

Most popular news in Antennas & propagation