AVX Corporation announced its extensive portfolio of high-performance, high-efficiency patch antennas optimized to satisfy demanding connectivity and miniaturization requirements in wireless applications throughout the automotive, industrial, networking, medical, consumer electronics, energy, and transportation industries.
Ethertronics’ embedded on-board patch antennas have small, low-profile form factors and leverage the company’s patented isolated magnetic dipole (IMD) technology to achieve both reduced ground plane and keep-out area size requirements for greater design flexibility and higher efficiency, gain, isolation, and directivity characteristics than competing solutions from 1.5–2.4GHz for reliable connectivity with better return loss and minimal interference. The range is also RoHS compliant and available with multiple feed points, optional cable connections, and adhesive and through-hole solder pin mounting options. Ideal applications include wireless electronics spanning wearables, IoT devices, gateways, and access points to point-of-sale terminals, tracking systems, telematics, digital signage, on-board diagnostics, connected vehicles, and machine-to-machine communications.
Ethertronics recently expanded its antenna portfolio with the addition of five new series of compact and low-profile, high-performance, high-efficiency embedded on-board patch antennas: the Wi-Fi/BT/Zigbee Ceramic Patch 2.4GHz Antennas (1003468), the GPS/GLONASS/Beidou/Galileo Patch Antennas (1004322), the GPS/GLONASS/Beidou/Galileo Dual-Feed Patch Antennas (1002649), the GPS/GLONASS Patch Antennas with Cable (1004627), and the GPS Ceramic Patch Antennas with Low-Noise Amplifier (LNA) (1004138). The variety of standard antenna offerings helps engineers reduce design costs and hasten time-to-market by eliminating the additional design fees and extended cycle times associated with custom solutions. In addition, each patch antenna series in the range features independent tuning capabilities for application-specific performance optimization, which is especially beneficial for mobile device designs including smartphones, headsets, tablets, and media players.
Each of the Ethertronics patch antennas in all five series measures a maximum of 25.0mm (±0.2mm) in length, 25.0mm (±0.2mm) in width, and 6.8mm (±0.7mm) in height, weighs between 4.8g and 14.3g, and supports a range of both high-band and ultra-high-band frequencies extending from 1.559–2.485GHz. Typical performance characteristics for each patch antenna series varies depending on its PCB ground plane dimensions (e.g., 50mm x 50mm or 70mm x 70mm) or free-space placement, but can include RHCP polarization, 50Ω unbalanced feed-point impedance, peak gain ranging from 3.0dBi at 1.602GHz to 5.5dBi from 1.575–1.610GHz, average efficiency spanning 51% from 1.559–1.591GHz to 74% from 2.400–2.485GHz, and VSWR match extending from <2:1 for 2.400–2.485GHz frequencies to <1:2.2 for 1.593–1.610GHz frequencies.
Ethertronics’ embedded on-board patch antennas are packaged and shipped in plastic trays and currently have an eight-week lead-time.