Antenna PCB Manufacturer

PCB antennas must provide powerful performance in a compact package, especially for today's fixed and mobile terminals In some cases, PCB antennas must provide high gain, be lightweight or handle very high power levels. The choice of circuit laminate material has a significant impact on the size and performance of the PCB antenna, for example to achieve the highest gain in the RF and microwave bands.

PCB antennas are manufactured on laminates consisting of dielectric material covered with copper foil on one or both sides. The dielectric material may contain glass fibers, ceramics, or other fillers to improve electrical and mechanical stability. PCB antennas can be fabricated on one or both sides of the laminate, or by utilizing multiple layers of laminate material. If a multilayer laminate is used to design a PCB antenna, plated through holes in the insulating layer are usually used to realize the electrical connection of the conductor layer.

How to choose the right laminate for the PCB antenna, which requires a deep understanding of the application requirements of the PCB antenna, including electrical performance, size and weight, and know how to according to its performance parameters, the comparison of different materials. Substrate parameters include dielectric constant, loss factor and coefficient of thermal expansion, used in the manufacture of PCB antennas substrate dielectric constant generally in the range of 3.0 to 10.3, to the substrate of the Z-axis or the thickness of the measured value, whichever is applicable to use a low dielectric constant of the material to produce PCB antennas, usually means that the use of low-loss materials can provide higher antenna gain.

However, a low dielectric constant also affects the antenna size. Antennas operate at resonant frequencies, which is usually achieved by constructing microstrip or stripline resonant structures on a portion of the wavelength at a specified frequency, and the dimensions of the resonant structure are equivalent to the full wavelength, which is related to the dielectric constant of the substrate. The higher the dielectric constant, the smaller the size of the resonant structure that can be realized at a given frequency. However the higher dielectric constant comes at the cost of an increased loss factor, which reduces the antenna gain. For large antennas, the dielectric constant should be as uniform as possible throughout the substrate, since deviations in dielectric constant directly affect the impedance, amplitude, and phase of the antenna over the operating bandwidth. The dielectric constant thermal coefficient can also be utilized to assess the stability of the substrate dielectric constant as the temperature changes.