Evaluation Board for Wideband Antenna for Sub-6 GHz 5G Deployments
The Taoglas Reach series, are a revolutionary, low profile, small footprint, range of patent-pending SMD mount PCB wide-band antennas. The PCS.66.A has been designed to cover LTE cellular bands and all sub-6 GHz 5G deployments across the 600MHz to 6000MHz spectrum on a very small footprint of just 32 x 25mm. It also covers 3G and 2G bands to allow for fall-back when LTE is not available. The patent-pending design uses printed circuit board material and innovative design techniques to deliver the highest efficiencies at all bands when mounted on the device’s main PCB.
The PCS.66.A is suitable for lower cost LTE applications, especially IoT projects requiring wide bandwidth and comes supplied on tape and reel to allow it to be mounted via ‘pick & place’ onto the PCB. If tuning is required, it can also be tuned specifically depending on the device environment. If PCB space is an issue, the Reach PCS.86, covering 791 – 6000MHz, could be an option with an even smaller footprint of just 32 x 16mm. Contact your local Taoglas customer support team for advice on integrating the Reach into your device.
Key Advantages
1. Highest efficiency in small footprint
A comparative antenna to the Reach, for example, metal/ceramic/FPC, would have much-reduced efficiency in this configuration due to their high substrate loss at high frequencies. Very high-efficiency antennas are critical to 4G and 5G devices’ ability to deliver the stated data-speed rates of systems such as 5G and 4G.
2. Low profile
Many antennas require a large keep-out area in addition to the mechanical size to work correctly, which limits the usable PCB space. The Reach requires only .3 mm of additional keep-out, allowing board designers to maximize their PCB space.
3. Adaptable
The high radiation efficiency of the Reach over its entire operating bandwidth means that the total efficiency is only limited by the impedance mismatch loss. As a result, this antenna can be optimized via a matching network to the specific bands needed for any application. Efficiencies as high as 90% have been measured when the return loss is very high (-15 dB or more).
4. More resistant to detuning compared to other antenna integrations
If tuning is required it can be tuned for the device environment using a matching circuit, or other techniques on the main PCB itself. There is no need for new tooling, thereby saving money if customization is required.
5. Surface Mount Distribution (SMD)
Direct mount, ‘onboard antennas save on labor, cable, and connector costs, leads to higher integration yield rates, and reduces losses in transmission.
6. Minimum Transmission and Reception Losses
These are kept to an absolute minimum resulting in much improved OTA (over the air), i.e. TRP (Total Radiated Power) / TIS (Total Isotropic Radiation), device performance compared to similar efficiency cable and connector antenna solutions. This means it is an ideal antenna to be used for devices that need to pass for example USA carrier network approvals.
