Integrated Antenna With Distributed Architecture Using the Same Basic Structure for Millimeter-Wave Applications

This communication introduces an innovative distributed integrated antenna (DIA) architecture for millimeter-wave (mmWave) mobile terminals. The DIA discretizes the antenna into multiple components: basic structures and auxiliary structures, which are located on different parts of the mobile terminals, including chip, package, PCB, and shell. Meanwhile, the signal pathway between these components is achieved by the antenna’s internal electromagnetic coupling rather than a conductive connection, leading to lower radiation loss and larger availability in design space. This communication, moreover, presents several representative schemes of the DIA architecture and compares them with conventional architectures. In particular, a new scheme using the same basic structure is proposed to further reduce manufacturing costs and simplify the production cycle. To demonstrate this new scheme, three antenna examples using the same dipole on the package are designed. By combining different auxiliary structures on PCB/shell, varying radiation patterns, including beam steering, gain enhancement, and polarization conversion, are achieved. The simulated and measured results both show that all antennas can reach a wide impedance bandwidth of 24.25–29.5 GHz, with a high radiation efficiency exceeding 70%; therefore, the feasibility of the new scheme for DIA architecture is sufficiently verified.