13 October 2022

Antenova manufacturer of antennas and RF antenna modules for M2M and the IoT, says it has halved the footprint of its 4G cellular antennas with its latest offering.

Designed for small PCBs, Antenova’s Pharaoh antenna (P/N SR4L073) covers all 4G frequencies: 698 – 824 MHz, 824-960 MHz, 1710-2170 MHz, 2300-2400 MHz and 2500-2690 MHz.

The company reckons the Pharaoh’s small ground requirement “offers designers a huge advantage in designs on a small circuit board”, such as miniature pet trackers, wearables or OBD-II designs.

This antenna was tested with evaluation boards of 50 x 40 mm and 60 x 40 mm and its performance-to-footprint ratio out-ranked competing 4G antennas for small circuit boards. They typically require a minimum 60 x 40 mm of space, utilise large and costly band switching networks and display lower levels of efficiency.

Critically, the Pharaoh’s performance on small PCBs is above the level required to pass PTCRB tests for cellular networks.

“The performance of an antenna is directly related to the length of its ground plane,” Michael Castle, product marketing manager, Antenova, explains. “At the lowest 4G frequency, 698 MHz, the wavelength λ for electromagnetic radiation is 42.95 cm. Most antennas require a ground plane of a quarter wavelength, which means they need a space of 107 mm to operate effectively. Our Pharaoh antenna smashes this rule and uses about half of this area.” antenova.com