Co-design of an antenna-power amplifier RF front-end block without matching network for 2.4 GHz WiFi application

Abstract

A co-design of an antenna-Power Amplifier (PA) block in RF front-end module is presented. This technique enables the direct integration of PA and antenna without any matching circuits and helps to reduce the loss, power consumption and overall size of the RF front-end modules without affecting the efficiency of the PA. For first two harmonics the impedance matching between the PA and antenna is achieved by utilizing a capacitively coupled feeding mechanism which controls the input impedance of the antenna. By using this integration technique a Class-B PA operating at 2.4 GHz provides a maximum efficiency of 62% which is similar to the performance with the additional matching circuit. Also the design methodology of the antenna is reported. The antenna provides an axial beam with a maximum gain of 6.5 dBi and has a radiation efficiency of 85%.

Co-Design of a GPS Antenna Low-Noise Amplifier Front-End Circuit

“…In active integrated antennas (AIAs), the miniaturization of wireless telecommunication devices has been a driving factor in the development of new design strategies that depart from the traditional frontend circuit setup [1], [2]. These strategies, usually referred to as co-design or direct matching, get rid of the matching circuitry by directly matching the antenna to the active component, which in turn reduces the size, loss, and complexity of the overall design [3]- [5].…”

Circularly polarised rectangular microstrip antenna design with arbitrary input impedance

“…The co-design methodology [3][4][5][6] applied to active integrated antennas (AIAs) [7] is a clear example of the aforesaid strategies. It eliminates the need for matching circuitry [8][9][10] between the antenna and the amplifier by making the former operate as both a radiator and matching network.…”