Analysis and measurement of electric field distributions on the PCB built in a WLAN communication unit

The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is used to study electric field distributions on the printed circuit board (PCB) built in a wireless local area network (WLAN) communication unit. In simulations, the near-field FDTD method is used for the study. In the modeling of the PCB and WLAN communication unit, an equivalent material obtained by the effective material property technique is considered to model the metallic material and epoxy resin substrate of PCBs, cable, and air. Calculation results of electric field distributions on the PCB are presented and compared with those obtained from measurements.