Antenova Pharaoh 4G antenna

Antenova has halved the footprint of its 4G cellular antennas with the Pharaoh SMD antenna. Designed for small PCBs, the antenna covers all 4G frequencies: 698–824, 824–960, 1710–2170, 2300–2400 and 2500–2690 MHz. Its small ground requirement offers designers a big advantage in designs on a small circuit board, such as miniature pet trackers, wearables or OBD-II designs.

The antenna was tested with evaluation boards of 50 x 40 and 60 x 40 mm and its performance-to-footprint ratio outranked competing 4G antennas for small circuit boards, the company says. These typically require a minimum 60 x 40 mm of space, utilise large and band switching networks and display low levels of efficiency.

The performance of an antenna is directly related to the length of its ground plane. 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. The Pharaoh uses about half of this area, with its performance on small PCBs above the level required to pass PTCRB tests for cellular networks.

The product is supplied with a reference design and matching network to help integrate the antenna into a device and shorten the design cycle.