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Multi-feed RF front-ends and cellular antennas for next generation smartphones

Pekka Ikonen, Juha Ell, Edgar Schmidhammer, Pasi Tikka, Prasadh Ramachandran, Petteri Annamaa

Abstract We consider present and emerging

wireless broadband standards such as HSPA and LTE, and discuss some related implications on the RF frontend of next generation multi-mode smartphones. It is shown that in the future triple-feed RF front-end partitioning is the only RF partitioning that allows serving multiple operators with the same RF hardware configuration. It is also argued that triple-feed cellular antenna interface towards the RF front-end offers several design benefits and performance improvements as compared to more conventional single-feed antenna interface. Example triple-feed cellular antenna is designed to match the proposed RF front-end. It is shown that very good antenna performance can be achieved with a compact size solution both in free space and under user interaction. Index Terms RF front-end, cellular antenna, mobile phone, multi-mode operation, wireless broadband, High Speed Packet Access, Long Term Evolution

With LTE the five globally used frequency band ranges for WCDMA/HSPA (bands 1, 2, 4, 5, 8) are being extended towards the 700 MHz frequency region (band 20 in Europe, bands 13, 17 in the US) and towards the 2500 MHz frequency region (band 7 in Europe). For the RF front-end this means, e.g., more throws in the antenna switch connecting the antenna to a larger number of filtering units. The apparent challenge for the cellular antenna is the extended frequency band coverage for LTE, added on top of prevailing stringent total efficiency requirements in 2G/3G operation (especially under user interaction) originating from network operators performance requirements. In addition to above, downlink MIMO is a mandatory requirement already in the first deployments of LTE (3GPP rel-8) requiring at least one additional cellular antenna in the phone, and low correlation and coupling between the cellular antennas. To improve the downlink data rate in the transitional phase from 3G to 4G in a fragmented spectrum environment, 3GPP rel-8 and rel-9 specify dual and multi-carrier HSPA reception [2]. Two scenarios are defined: intra-band and inter-band carrier aggregation. The former (3GPP rel-8) means that the phone receives simultaneously data on two carriers within one frequency band, the latter (3GPP rel-9) that the two carriers are located in different frequency bands. For the RF front-end inter-band carrier aggregation means that the front-end has to route two signals, received at different frequency bands, simultaneously to two active receivers in the RF transceiver. 3GPP rel-9 also specifies the possibility to use intra or inter-band carrier aggregation in combination with downlink MIMO (or diversity reception). Thus, when both inter-band carrier aggregation and downlink MIMO are required, there will be four active receivers in the RFIC and the diversity RF front-end has similar routing requirements as described above for the main RF front-end. 3GPP rel-10 discusses the evolution of LTE (LTE Advanced) and specifies carrier aggregation both for reception and transmission, as well as uplink MIMO. The number of different band pairs for HSPA-FDD and LTE-FDD inter-band carrier aggregation, either specified or currently discussed in 3GPP, is around 15 and growing. Different network operators propose different band pair combinations based on the spectrum they own. It is clear that in the long run operator-specific RF hardware configurations are not feasible due to extensive amount of

I. INTRODUCTION HE currently deployed cellular air interface standards (GSM, WCDMA, HSPA, CDMA, TDSCDMA) and their evolutions will merge into Long Term Evolution (LTE) [1]. The smartphones will continue to be multi-mode devices supporting 2G, 3G and 3G+ air interface standards while providing support for LTE. Cellular antennas and RF front-end (RF hardware in between the RF transceiver and the antenna) have to, therefore, support requirements from an increasing number of standards. We assume that our addressed example phone follows the GSM track of air interface standards specified by 3GPP. That is, the phone supports GSM (2G), WCDMA (3G), HSPA(-FDD) (3G+) and LTE(-FDD) (4G).

P. Ikonen, J. Ell, E. Schmidhammer and P. Tikka are with EPCOS, a group company of TDK Corporation. (e-mail: pekka.ikonen@epcos.com, juha.ella@epcos.com, edgar.schmidhammer@epcos.com and pasi.tikka@epcos.com). P. Ramachandran and P. Annamaa are with Pulse Electronics Corporation (e-mail: PRamachandran @pulseelectronics.com and PAnnamaa@pulseelectronics.com).

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RF variants that would be needed. Therefore, RF architectures that allow serving majority of operators with the same hardware configuration are urgently needed. Majority of phones available on the market today have single-feed partitioned RF front-end. This means that the RF front-end typically has one single-pole multi-throw antenna switch with high-number of throws connecting the antenna to different filters or duplexers. One cellular antenna feed is connected to the antenna (that can consist of one radiator or several radiators diplexed to a single-feed RF front-end). Nokia N8 is an example smartphone utilizing dual-feed RF front-end architecture (RF front-end is divided into 1 GHz and 2 GHz parts by utilizing separate antenna switches for these frequency ranges) and a dual-feed cellular antenna (two antenna feeds from RF front-end are connected to two radiators) [3]. It is later shown that conventional single-feed RF front-end inevitably leads to operator specific carrier aggregation support, while proposed triple-feed RF front-end (evolution of dual-feed taking into account also 2.5 GHz frequency region) and triple-feed cellular antenna lead to universal hardware for carrier aggregation. To reasonably limit the discussion only main RF front-end is considered in this paper. However, the observations can in many cases be extended also for the diversity RF front-end. Majority of presently introduced cellular antennas capable of supporting also new LTE bands are single-feed.1 This is natural as majority of RF front-ends are single-feed partitioned. References [69] contain some information about ongoing LTE-antenna development for mobile phones by commercial antenna suppliers as advertized in their web-pages (it is fair to assume that there are also several other commercial suppliers active with LTE-antenna development, though not publicly announced). References [1016] are some examples of academic works about multiband LTE-antennas for mobile phones. Molex [7] is advertizing development of dual-feed LTE-antenna, though no technical details are provided in the web page. Rest of the references [6, 816] refer to single-feed LTE-antennas. Dual-feed cellular antennas (for 5-band operation) and dual-feed RF front-ends are previously discussed, e.g., in [3, 1721]. Benefits of triple-feed cellular antennas, used with the proposed triple-feed RF front-end, are highlighted later in the paper. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section II presents example single-feed and triple-feed RF front-ends on a block diagram level. Selected RF design implications stemming from new system requirements are introduced in Section III. Section IV introduces an exemplary triple-feed cellular antenna supporting the proposed triple-feed RF front-end. Conclusions and discussion are presented in Section V. II. EXAMPLE SINGLE-FEED AND TRIPLE-FEED RF FRONT-ENDS The current consensus among handset and chipset vendors is that future smartphones will have three main (regional) variants with slightly modified RF hardware: variant for US, variant for Europe, and variant for China/Japan. Differences in RF hardware relate, e.g., to different duplexers for LTE due to different frequency bands deployed for LTE in different regions. For clarity of discussion, we assume that the considered phone is targeted for European market. Therefore, first, we assume that the phone supports all four GSM bands (GSM850, GSM900, GSM1800, GSM1900) for global 2G operation. For WCDMA/HSPA major operators deploy frequency bands 1 and 8 in Europe, and the phone typically also supports WCDMA over bands 2 and 5 for global 3G roaming. Bands 1, 3, 7 and 20 are initially planned to be used for LTE in Europe (discussion is ongoing about the deployment of LTE in the near future over several other bands as well).

A. Example single-feed RF front-end

GSM1800
1 3 2 3 1 2 4

Band 7
3 4 1 2 2 3 4

2 3 1

Band 3
1 2 2

3 1

1 3 2 1

Band 2 GSM 1900Rx

4 3 4

2 3 1

2 3 1

Band 1
1 1 1 2

1 3 1 4 2

1 1 2

PAs

1 2 1 1 2

GSM Tx HB GSM Tx LB
2 1 1 2 1 2

FEM

Band 5 GSM 850Rx

2

1 1 1

2 2 1

Band 8 GSM 900Rx

2 3 1

4 4 3

RFIC
3

Band 20

1 2

In the following we only focus on Tx&Rx antenna performance, but bear in mind that inserting Rx-MIMO antenna to the platform causes noticeable antenna-related challenges such as inherently high envelope correlation at low-band, and challenges with antenna port isolation and corresponding drop in antenna efficiencies. Solving such challenges is out of the scope of this paper, and reader interested in these topics can get further information, e.g., in [4,5] and the references therein.

2 3 4 3 1

Figure 1: Example single-feed RF front-end for a multimode smartphone.

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Figure 1 shows on a block diagram level an example singlefeed RF front-end that could potentially be used in the example phone. The blue dashed connections and the blue dashedcircle are later used to highlight certain design aspects. The underlying assumption is that there is one cellular antenna covering all the previously listed frequency bands. Coupler is used in between the antenna and the antenna switch to monitor power going to the antenna, and this information is used to control the power amplifier output. The antenna switch has in this case 10 throws connecting the antenna to different filtering units. We have grouped the 2G and 3G filtering units inside the dotted magenta box, indicating that the related filtering units (and switches) could be implemented as an integrated front-end module similarly as is done in Nokia N8 [3]. In this case duplexers for bands 3, 7, 20 and GRSM1800 Rx filter would be implemented discretely on the printed wiring board. The logic of grouping 2G and 3G filtering units to an integrated front-end module is straightforward: the module would remain mostly the same also in a phone variant targeted, e.g., to US (with the likely exception of replacing band 1 duplexer with band 4 duplexer). LTE is planned to be initially deployed in the US over bands 4, 5, 13 and 17 (and later over other bands as well), thus, some of the discrete duplexers for European LTE-bands (3, 20) could be replaced with pin-compatible duplexers for bands 13 and 17. Band 7 is being discussed as a global band for 4G roaming, and could be supported also in a US phone variant. It is to be noted that there are several possibilities for component integration, and not all the bands considered here might be supported in a real phone. Hence, the blockdiagram in Fig. 1 represents only one example possibility, and the RF front-end is not necessarily optimized in all aspects. For example the GSM1900 could have its own Rxfilter instead of being routed through the band 2 duplexer. Also, e.g., the mode (Tx) switches could be integrated in the power amplifier module which could also contain some of the power amplifiers that now are presented as discrete power amplifiers. 7 antenna would be used to cover all the relevant cellular frequencies close to the 2.5 GHz region.

Band 7
2 2 3 1

2.6GHz antenna
3 4

GSM1800 Rx

2 3

2 3 4 3

Band 3 Band 2 GSM 1900Rx

3 4 3 4

2 1 2 2 3 1

2 3 1

RFIC

1 1 2 2 1 2 2

2GHz antenna

Band 1

1 1 2

PAs
1 2

1 3 1 3 1 4

2 2 4 2

1 2 1

GSM Tx HB GSM Tx LB

1 2 1

1 1 2

1GHz antenna

FEM

Band 5 GSM 850Rx

1 2 2 2 1

1 1

Band 8 GSM 900Rx

2 3 1

Band XX
1

4 4 3

2 3 1 2 2 1

2 3 4 3 1

Figure 2: Example triple-feed RF front-end for a multimode smartphone. A single-feed antenna for 1 and 2 GHz regions could also be used with the RF front-end shown in Fig. 2. This would require adding a diplexer in between the antenna and antenna switches. In principle, one antenna that would cover also band 7 (in addition to 1 and 2 GHz regions) could be used with the RF front-end in Fig. 2. In this case band 7 signal would be routed through the diplexer to 2 GHz antenna switch that would have one additional throw. This switch throw would connect the antenna to the band 7 duplexer. However, nominally the diplexer would add roughly 0.8 dB insertion loss at 2.5 GHz region [22]. More importantly, as will be shown in Section III, routing band 7 signal to the single-feed antenna would have rather strong negative effect on system performance when inter-band carrier aggregation is deployed.

B. Example triple-feed RF front-end The RF front-end in Fig. 2 is a triple-feed (for cellular antenna) partitioned RF front-end. The integrated front-end module (dotted magenta box) has been dual partitioned into 1 GHz and 2 GHz parts with two antenna switches similarly as in Nokia N8 [3]. 2.5 GHz antenna is directly connected to band 7 duplexer in this example. From antenna point of view assumption is that the 1 GHz antenna covers frequencies from 791 to 960 MHz, 2 GHz antenna frequencies from 1710 to 2170 MHz and 2.5 GHz antenna frequencies from 2500 to 2690 MHz. To generalize the triple-feed RF front-end, band 7 duplexer could be replaced with a 2.5 GHz front-end module containing own antenna switch and, e.g., filters for LTE-TDD bands 38, 40 and 41 in addition to band 7 duplexer. In this case the band

III. RF DESIGN CHALLENGES FROM NEW SYSTEM

REQUIREMENTS

A. HSPA inter-band carrier aggregation Table I summarizes band combinations and carrier frequency allocations used for HSPA inter-band carrier

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aggregation in different regions specified in 3GPP rel-9 and rel-10 [2]. Dual-carrier feature is specified in 3GPP rel-9, and multi-carrier feature in 3GPP rel-10. Typically the band pairs consist of a 1 GHz and 2 GHz band pair, except for the band 2 and 4 combination which is a 2 GHz and 2 GHz combination. In our example (EU phone variant) the phone is receiving data simultaneously over bands 1 and 8. front-end would remain, as there is no need for band-pair specific duplexer matching. Different 1 and 2 GHz carrier aggregation band pairs would be supported with the same RF hardware configuration. With band pair 2 and 4 hardwired duplexer matching is required irrespective of the type of antenna interface. This is due to the proximity of frequencies for bands 2 and 4: signals for both bands are always routed through the same antenna switch in all RF architectural choices. Matching circuitry could be implemented directly in LTCC substrate (distributed matching circuits). As a summary, to support HSPA inter-band carrier aggregation with the single-feed RF front-end (Fig. 1) the requirements are: i) the antenna switch has two throws active at the same time, ii) each carrier aggregation duplexer pair is matched together. With the triple-feed RF front-end shown in Fig. 2 there is no need to alter the antenna switch control logic. Also, there is no need for duplexer matching (excl. band pair 2 and 4) as the needed isolation is provided either by diplexer (if single antenna is used for 1 and 2 GHz regions) or isolation between separate 1 and 2 GHz antennas. In addition to this, insertion loss from an antenna switch with 5 throws as compared 10 throws is up to 0.3 dB lower at 2 GHz (difference is smaller at 1 GHz) and linearity is better [20]. Thus, overall, presented triple-feed RF front-end used with separate antennas for 1 and 2 GHz regions would maintain modularity of the RF front-end, and provide up to 0.8 dB better insertion loss as compared to single-feed RF frontend.

Bands 1+8 2+4 1+5 1 + 11 2+5

Region EU US AU(JP) JP US

Allocation [MHz] (dual-carrier) 5+5 5+5 5+5 5+5 5+5

Allocation [MHz] (multi-carrier) 15 + 5 and 10 + 5 10 + 10, 10 + 5 and 5 + 10 10 + 10 and 10 + 5

Table I: HSPA inter-band carrier aggregation band combinations and carrier allocations in different regions.

In single-feed RF front-end (Fig. 1) duplexers for bands 1 and 8 need to be simultaneously connected the antenna feed to support inter-band carrier aggregation. This is achieved by modifying the antenna switch control logic to have two active switch throws simultaneously. Configuring the antenna switch to have two active throws at the same time possesses no additional challenges from insertion loss or linearity point of view [23]. In order to prevent the band 1 and 8 duplexers from loading each other hardwired duplexer matching is required in between antenna switch throws and band 1 and 8 duplexers (in the locations indicated as blue dashed lines in Fig .1). Such hardwired matching would in many cases be implemented directly on typically used LTCC laminate for front-end modules [3]. According to our studies a typical matching circuitry would yield in about 0.5 dB additional insertion loss. More importantly, however, the hardwired matching would destroy the modularity of the RF front-end and the ideology to support multiple operators with single RF hardware: different matching would be required for every inter-band carrier aggregation band pair. With triple-feed RF front-end (Fig. 2) supporting inter-band carrier aggregation over bands 1 and 8, either single antenna for 1 and 2 GHz regions or separate antennas for 1 and 2 GHz regions (as shown in Fig 2) could be used. With a single antenna for 1 and 2 GHz regions a diplexer would need to be added in between the antenna and antenna switches, to prevent the duplexers from loading each others. Using separate antennas for 1 and 2 GHz regions would take away the need to use the diplexer, assuming minimum around 10 to 12 dB isolation between the 1 and 2 GHz antennas. Removing the diplexer would slightly improve the insertion loss (typical insertion loss is around 0.2 to 0.3 dB from the diplexer at 1 and 2 GHz regions [22]), save printed wiring board area and cost. Note that in both above described cases the modularity of the RF

B. LTE inter-band carrier aggregation Table II summarizes band combinations and carrier frequency allocations used for LTE inter-band carrier aggregation in different regions (3GPP rel-10) [1]. In our example case the phone receives LTE-data simultaneously over bands 3 and 7. Bands 1+5 3+7 Region AU (JP) EU Allocation [MHz] 10 + 10 20 + 20

Table II: LTE inter-band carrier aggregation band combinations and carrier allocations in different regions.

When HSPA and LTE inter-band carrier aggregation are to be simultaneously supported with single-feed RF front-end (Fig. 1) any duplexer pair used for carrier aggregation needs to be matched together. In our EU phone variant example this means hardwired matching for duplexer pairs 1 and 8 and 3 and 7. This leads to practical challenge to find enough room for matching circuit implementation on the small-volume LTCC substrate [3, Fig. on page 30]. Moreover, a US phone variant would require different

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matching making single-feed RF front-end unpractical for inter-band carrier aggregation support. We will highlight the importance of using separate antenna for band 7 (2.5 GHz region) using the following example: Consider the triple-feed RF front-end shown in Fig. 2. Band 7 antenna could be removed if the 2 GHz antenna response would cover also band 7. In this case one switch throw would be added to the 2 GHz antenna switch, connecting the 2 GHz antenna to band 7 duplexer. However, to support LTE inter-band carrier aggregation over bands 3 and 7, duplexers for these bands would be simultaneously connected to the 2 GHz antenna feed. Therefore hardwired matching would be needed in between the antenna switch and band 3 and 7 duplexers (as described in the previous subsection). With separate band 7 (2.5 GHz region) antenna this matching would not be needed. for band pair 3 and 7 (again, assuming ideal 50 Ohm antenna impedance). Similar observations can be made as for the band 3 duplexer response. As a summary: whenever band 7 (frequency band in the 2.5 GHz frequency region) is to be supported with inter-band carrier aggregation, it is highly beneficial for system performance to utilize a separate band 7 (2.5 GHz region) antenna. Utilizing separate band 7 antenna can lead to up to 2 dB lower insertion loss in the RF chain.

0 -1

-2

-3

-4

0
-5

-1
-6 2.45 2.5 2.55 2.6 Frequency (GHz) 2.65 2.7 2.75

-2 -3 -4 -5 -6 1.7 1.75 1.8 Frequency (GHz) 1.85 1.9

Figure 4: Pass-band frequency response of band 7 duplexer when LTE inter-band carrier aggregation is used for band pair 3 and 7.

Figure 3: Pass-band frequency response of band 3 duplexer when LTE inter-band carrier aggregation is used for band pair 3 and 7.

C. Example of co-existence issue partially solved by RF front-end partitioning: LTE band 7 and WLAN 2.4 GHz Below we present another system-related issue that favors the use of separate antenna for band 7 (2.5 GHz region). When the LTE transmitter is active at band 7 and WLAN signal is simultaneously transmitted over 2.4 GHz band, third-order inter-modulation distortion product (IMD3) falls into the Rx-band of band 7, and potentially desensitizes the LTE receiver. IMD3 in a single-feed RF front-end is created in the antenna switch (band 7 throw, blue dashed oval in Fig. 1) and in the triple-feed RF front-end in the band 7 duplexer (blue dashed box in Fig 2.). A typical requirement for isolation between WLAN antenna and cellular antenna is 12 dB over the cellular transmission (Tx) band. Thus, realistically around +8.5 dBm blocker power (WLAN Tx) can leak through the LTE-antenna port to the cellular RF front-end. Assuming +20 dBm 4G power at the cellular antenna port, to meet the typical standard specification of 110 dBm for IMD products, the component causing distortion should have third order input intercept point (IIP3) of 79.25 dBm. With current switch technologies it is possible to achieve around 70 dBm IIP3 with approximately -1.0 dB insertion loss (we assume a 10 throw

Figure 3 shows the pass-band frequency response of example band 3 duplexer when carrier aggregation is used for band pair 3 and 7 (we assume ideal 50 Ohm antenna impedance). Red line corresponds to the case where separate band 7 antenna is used (setup shown in Fig. 2). Blue line represents the situation when 2 GHz antenna is used to cover also band 7, and hardwired matching is implemented for duplexer pair 3 and 7. We observe that using a separate band 7 antenna (assuming 10 to 12 dB isolation between this antenna and other cellular antennas) leads to even 2 dB lower insertion loss. The rather extensive losses for the case where 2 GHz antenna is used also for band 7 come from i) losses of the duplexer matching circuitry, ii) finite reflectivity of band 7 duplexer at band 3 frequencies. Finite reflectivity of band 7 duplexer causes part of the band 3 power to leak to band 7 RF chain. Figure 4 shows the pass-band frequency response of example band 7 duplexer when carrier aggregation is used

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antenna switch). Achieving the 79.25 dBm IIP3 target (with small insertion loss) would in practice require cascading SP2T and SP9T switches (one of the SP2T throws would be directly connected to the band 7 duplexer), making the solution non-feasible due to cost and size. If the antenna is directly connected to a band 7 duplexer, like with the triple-feed RF front-end (Fig. 2), interoperability can be more easily solved. This is due to the fact that passive filters are easier to design to meet the very stringent IIP3 requirements than active switches, especially when using bulk acoustic wave (BAW) devices. Quantifying the obtainable linearity improvements through optimized filter design needs further study, and could be a subject of a future paper. circuit calculations are performed using AWR Microwave Office. The antenna consists of three radiators implemented on a common antenna carrier. Alternatively, the radiators could be implemented in structural or visual mechanics of the phone. All radiators are inverted L-antennas (ILA). The left radiator in Figs. 5 is ILA for 1 GHz region (700 to 960 MHz), the middle radiator is ILA for 2.5 (2500 to 2690 MHz) GHz region and the right radiator is ILA for 2 GHz region (1710 to 2170 MHz). The antenna carrier has dimensions 50 x 18 x 7 mm3, and the simulated printed wiring board has dimensions 50 x 115 mm2. There is a 9 x 50 mm2 ground opening below the radiators. The antenna carrier dimensions are approximately the same as considered in [6], and we have deliberately maintained the 18 mm antenna carrier dimension in the longitudinal printed wiring board direction, even though the radiators extend at maximum only 9 mm in this direction. The antenna carrier is modeled as pc-abs block with relative permittivity 2.8(1 j0.007), and the radiators and printed wiring board are modeled as metal sheets having conductivity of 5 x 108 S/m. Three C-clips are used to connect the radiator to the printed wiring board, and they are modeled to have the bulk conductivity of copper. The radiator design principles are the following: electrical length of each radiator is designed to be quarter of a wavelength at the center frequency of the operating frequency range. Radiators are bent over the carrier edge to obtain as strong as possible coupling to the chassis modes to maximize impedance bandwidth (this is particularly relevant at low band). In the middle of the operating frequency range the radiators obey series resonant type input impedance behavior (see Figs. 17 and 18 in ref. [21] for illustration of the raw impedance of conceptually similar radiators).
PORT P=1 Z=50 Ohm

IV. PROPOSED TRIPLE-FEED CELLULAR ANTENNA Above we have highlighted selected design benefits and performance improvements potentially achievable with triple-feed RF front-end as compared to traditional singlefeed RF front-end. In order to eventually fully obtain the predicted system improvements we need to have size and performance competitive triple-feed cellular antenna. Below we present an example of such antenna. A. Antenna structure and selected simulation results

2.5 GHz ILA

2 GHz ILA

m 12m

4mm 1 GHz ILA

Figure 5: Simulation model of the proposed triple-feed LTEantenna.

CAP ID=C1 C=3.3 pF

Simulation model of the proposed triple-feed LTE antenna2 is shown in Fig. 5. All 3D electromagnetic simulations have been performed using CST Microwave Studio, and all
The antenna is the main LTE-antenna used for both transmission and reception (Tx & Rx). Complete LTE-antenna system would require still the addition of the MIMO antenna.
2

m 9m

50mm

IND ID=L4 L=0.2 nH CAP ID=C2 C=6.8 pF IND ID=L1 L=3.9 nH

2

m 7m

m 5m 11

PORT P=3 Z=50 Ohm

SUBCKT "3 Feed ILA"

PORT P=2 Z=50 Ohm

IND ID=L3 L=0.2 nH IND ID=L2 L=1 nH

CAP ID=C4 C=1.3 pF

Figure 6: Matching circuits for the radiators. Port 1 is for 1GHz radiator, port 3 for 2 GHz radiator and port 2 for 2.5 GHz radiator.

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Figure 6 shows the input matching circuits for the radiators. In the prototype setup the real part of input impedance is mainly determined by the ground-clearance portion. When the antenna is located inside a real phone, close by mechanics components such as battery, possible metal back cover, hands-free speakers below the antenna carrier, and display typically lower the real part of input impedance. The purpose of the matching circuit is to first increase the input resistance close to 50 Ohms. This can be done, for example, with the tapped inductors. Small inductor values used in the transformer can be implemented as narrow lines on the board. The residual reactance is tuned with the shunt capacitor to create a double resonant matching peak. More discussion about the operational principles of ILA radiators used with proposed matching circuits is presented, e.g., in [17, 21]. The 2.5 GHz ILA can be matched over the target frequencies with a shunt capacitor. are typically sensitive to user effect) in the structures it is predicted that the user interaction will be relatively weak. This will be demonstrated with the experimental prototype Also, it is predicted that the antenna response is relatively insensitive to placement of mechanics components (e.g., integrated hands-free speakers or connectors) under the antenna carrier. Response insensitivity to mechanics components will increase the practical feasibility of implementing such antennas inside real phones. In addition to above, it was shown in [21] that a dual-feed antenna, corresponding roughly to the 1 GHz and 2 GHz radiator pair considered here, provides inherently good possibility for the phone to meet hearing-aid compatibility (HAC) requirements. It is predicted that with proper design the same conclusions apply, at least partially, also with the proposed triple-feed antenna. Proving this can be a subject of a following paper.

B. Prototype and experimental verification Figure 8 shows a photograph of the implemented prototype. The radiators are implemented as copper-tape strips on the same carrier as considered in [6]. We have done the following characterization: Input matching and total efficiency in a) free space, b) besides head phantom, right side (BHR), c) besides head phantom with hand phantom, right side (BHHR). Total efficiency measurements have been carried out according to CTIA standard version 3.0.

Figure 7: Simulated S-parameters in free space.

Simulated S-parameters in free space are shown in Fig. 7 (more complete set of results is presented with the experimental prototype verification in Section IV B). Note that the 1 GHz radiator used in a phone targeted for European market (where band 7 is to be deployed for LTE) would only need to cover frequency range 791 to 960 MHz. However, we deliberately demonstrate the band coverage potential of the 1 GHz radiator by matching it also over bands 17 and 13 used for LTE in the US. Thus, the same radiator could be also readily used in a US phone variant (which could possibly support global LTE roaming over band 7). The proposed matching circuits act as band-pass filters ensuring low coupling between the radiators. The matching circuits also effectively filter out the higher order cellular harmonics in a deterministic way (due to filter-like input matching circuits), which can be an important design consideration for future platforms. Moreover, due to the characteristics of the radiators matching is implemented on a circuit level and there are no dual-banding slots (which

Figure 8: Photograph of the implemented triple-feed antenna prototype.

Figure 9 shows the measured S-parameters in different use cases. We observe good correspondence between simulated and measured responses. The measured input impedances through the matching circuits are shown on Smith Chart in Figs. 1012. In the 1 GHz region the implemented prototype has slightly higher losses as

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compared to the simulated situation. This is seen as wider impedance bandwidth in free space.

Figure 11: Measured input impedance for the 2 GHz ILA through the matching circuit. Figure 9: Measured S-parameters in different use cases. Solid lines for free space, dashed lines for besides the head, right side (BHR), dotted lines for besides the head with hand, right side (BHHR). The blue, green and yellow lines denote coupling between the radiators.

The measured total efficiency in different use cases is presented in Fig. 13. A typical free-space performance target for a Tx & Rx LTE-antenna prototype from handset manufacturers is -4.5 dB total efficiency over all low bands (incl. 700 MHz region), and -3.0 dB total efficiency over all high bands. We observe that the prototype can meet all these requirements very comfortably, leaving enough room for any implementation loss which typically occurs due to the presence of various components like USB connector, audio jack speaker etc.

Figure 12: Measured input impedance for the 2.5 GHz ILA through the matching circuit. Network operators are typically characterizing the over-theair (OTA) performance of phones in BHR measurement condition (possibly also in BHHR measurement condition) [24]. Typical antenna prototype performance targets (total efficiency in above measurement conditions) are derived from network operators total radiated power (TRP) requirements for phones operating in 2G/3G modes. In this derivation engine output powers, typical losses in the RF chain and losses due to power coupled to phone mechanics are used to extract the allowed total efficiency for the antenna. TRP requirements are mode (2G or 3G), frequency band (also if we operate in transmit or receive mode), and to some extent network operator dependent. To simplify the analysis, we use the following average values3
3 The average total efficiency values have been derived from more detailed band and mode dependent performance targets in besides the head phantom measurement condition received from handset manufacturers.

Figure 10: Measured input impedance for the 1 GHz ILA through the matching circuit.

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as indicative performance targets in BHR measurement condition: Total efficiency in the 1 GHz region -9.5 dB and in the 2 GHz region -6.3 dB. The indicative performance targets are met by the prototype. power could be gained back by ideally correcting the impedance to 50 Ohms with a lossless system. In BHR and BHHR measurement condition biggest difference between the total efficiency and the radiation efficiency is around 1.5 dB in the 1 GHz range and around 1 dB in the 2 GHz range. The rather large difference between total efficiency and radiation efficiency in the 2.5 GHz range is due to the fact that the antenna is not well matched at the highest edge of band 7 (bandwidth is slightly too narrow). This is seen as rather large losses due to reflection in the antenna port. Impedance bandwidth could be widened, e.g., by adding another matching component to the matching circuit.
0 -0.5 -1 -1.5 -2 -2.5 -3 -3.5 -4 -4.5 -5 -5.5 -6 -6.5 -7 -7.5 -8 -8.5 -9 -9.5 -10 -10.5 -11 -11.5 -12 -12.5 -13 -13.5 -14
76 0 82 0 88 0 91 0 17 50 18 10 18 70 19 30 19 90 20 50 21 10 21 70 25 10 25 70 26 30 26 90 70 0 73 0 79 0 85 0 94 0

Figure 13: Measured total efficiency in different use cases. Solid line for free space, dashed line for besides the head, right side (BHR), dotted line for besides the head with hand, right side (BHHR).

Losses in the BHHR measurement condition are on a typical level, when comparing the values to the data in [24] (for the monopole case) and by accounting for the fact that real human operator measurements can indicate higher absorption as compared to phantom measurements done according to the CTIA standard. The rather rapid decrease of the total efficiency in BHHR measurement condition at band 8 is caused by the mismatch of the antenna by the hand phantom interaction with the meandered section of the 1 GHz radiator on top of the antenna carrier. Figure 14 shows total efficiency and radiation efficiency in different use cases. With well isolated radiators (this is the case with the prototype) total efficiency in dB is by definition the sum of radiation efficiency and reflection efficiency, both in dB. In free space radiation efficiency is degraded from 0 dB by the power absorbed in the 3D antenna structure. Under user effect (BHR, BHHR) radiation efficiency is degraded from 0 dB by the power absorbed in the 3D antenna structure and in the human tissue. Reflection efficiency is degraded from 0 dB by mismatch loss and the power absorbed in lossy matching components. We make the general observation from Fig. 14 that in the 1 GHz and 2 GHz frequency regions the antenna is only rather moderately impedance-detuned in the presence of the head and hand phantoms in the CTIA measurement setup. This is indicated by the difference between the total efficiency and the radiation efficiency which tells how much

Efficiency [dB]

Frequency [MHz]

Figure 14: Total efficiency (solid line) and radiation efficiency (dashed line); in free space (no markers), BHR (with x maker) and BHHR (with + marker)

Radiation efficiency for the free space measurement condition, Fig. 14, is roughly in the same range as reported in [13, 14]. Antennas considered in [13, 14] have larger ground clearance as compared to the prototype presented here, but the radiators are implemented directly to the printed wiring board. The low-band total efficiency of the antenna measured in [15] is somewhat higher than the corresponding efficiency presented here (high-band values are closer to each other). However, the antenna considered in [15] has noticeably larger ground clearance as the proposed prototype.

V.

CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION

We have compared triple-feed partitioned RF front-end to a more conventionally partitioned single-feed RF front-end by taking into account design and performance implications from new wireless broadband standards such as HSPA and LTE. It has been shown that triple-feed partitioned RF front-

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end offers several design benefits and performance improvements as compared to single-feed partitioned RF front-end. Triple-feed RF front-end, used with triple-feed cellular antenna, can offer up to 2 dB better system performance as compared to single-feed RF front-end used with single-feed cellular antenna. Importantly, triple-feed RF front-end will allow serving multiple network operators with same RF hardware, whereas single-feed RF front-end leads to operator specific RF hardware configuration with new system requirements. Example triple-feed cellular antenna has been designed and experimentally characterized. The antenna has compact volume and it shows good performance both in free space and under user interaction.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The authors would like to thank Dr. Kevin Boyle for useful discussions.

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