A miniature chip antenna without empty space on PCB for 2.4GHz ISM band applications

For 2.4 GHz ISM band applications, such as Bluetooth and WLAN communication systems, an antenna effective in both radiation performance and space requirement is a critical part of the portable devices. Antennas used in the portable devices need to be compact, low-cost, efficient, and omni-directional for commercial applications. Thus, a miniature chip antenna without an empty area for 2.4 GHz ISM band applications is proposed in this paper. As shown in Fig. 1, the dimensions of this chip antenna are only 10(L)x3(W)x3.5(H) mm³, fabricated on an FR4 substrate, so that it can be easily installed inside the portable devices. Particularly, the empty area usually needed by using other built-in antennas is not required with our chip antenna. Thus, circuit routing on a multi-layer PCB will not be restricted due to the antenna, and circuit components can even be placed near the antenna. Therefore, the PCB space can be used more efficiently to miniaturize the RF device, and the antenna can be built in the device more flexibly.