Patent Publication Number: US-7595731-B1

Title: IC package antenna

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
   1. Field of the Invention 
   The present invention relates to an IC package antenna, and especially to an antenna formed by packaging an antenna base board with a housing of an integrated circuit, this allows standardized and miniaturized antenna designing, and is applicable to Surface Mount Technology (SMT). 
   2. Description of the Prior Art 
   An antenna is a necessary element for a set of communication equipment, and it is a technique pursued by the art to provide a good antenna structure for use under the requirement of miniaturization and compactness for portable wireless communication equipment. 
   Installing of electronic elements on a print circuit board normally is performed by Surface Mount Technology (SMT), the way mainly is to print tin paste on the print circuit board, and after electronic parts of a Surface Mount Device (SMD) are placed at correct positions, the tin paste is molten by reflowing to make soldering combining of the electronic parts with the print circuit board; such a technique of combining is not available easily for a conventional antenna, in view of this, it is the subject of the present invention to provide a brand new antenna structure in accompany with applying of Surface Mount Technology (SMT). 
   SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
   The present invention provides an IC package antenna to get rid of the problem resided in the conventional technique, firstly a metal radiating member is provided on a base board to form an antenna base board; the antenna base board is packaged with an IC packaging housing and a packaging bottom portion to form an IC chip. The IC packaging housing has a plurality of connecting pins extending outward from inside of itself, wherein the inner end of one connecting pin is soldering connected with a feed point of the base board of the antenna. 
   The IC package antenna provided in the present invention can allow standardized and miniaturized antenna designing, and is applicable to Surface Mount Technology (SMT). 
   The IC package antenna provided in the present invention can further be integrated with a set of radio frequency elements on the base board of the antenna. 
   The present invention will be apparent in its structure and characteristics after reading the detailed description of the preferred embodiment thereof in reference to the accompanying drawings. 

   
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       FIG. 1  is an exploded perspective view of the present invention; 
       FIG. 1A  is a top view of an antenna base board of the present invention; 
       FIG. 2  is a perspective view of the present invention after assembling; 
       FIG. 3  is a sectional view of the present invention; 
       FIG. 4  is an environment test chart of an embodiment of antenna of the present invention formed by placing the embodiment of antenna on an electric circuit board B; 
       FIG. 5  is a chart showing the result of VSWR test on the embodiment of antenna of the present invention; 
       FIG. 6  is a Smith chart showing the result of test on the embodiment of antenna of the present invention; 
       FIG. 7  is a perspective view showing the appearance of another embodiment of antenna base board of the present invention, the antenna base board is provided thereon with a matched circuit (that can adjust the impedance characteristic of the antenna) formed from radio frequency electric circuit elements; 
       FIG. 8  is a plane view of an embodiment of the present invention having multiple pins embodiment; these multiple pins are applied to different ranges of frequency bands for operation. 
   

   DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
   Referring to  FIGS. 1 to 3 , an IC package antenna of the present invention comprises in its structure an antenna base board  1 , an IC packaging housing  2  and a packaging bottom portion  3 . 
   The antenna base board  1  of the present invention has a metal radiating member  11  provided on a base board  12 , the base board  12  is formed thereon a feed point  13  and a circuit shorting point  14 ; referring to  FIG. 1A , the feed point  13  and the circuit shorting point  14  can be provided on another surface of the base board  12  in opposition to the metal radiating member  11 , while the base board  12  can be a microwave base board or a ceramic base board. 
   The IC packaging housing  2  is formed therein a receiving space  21  to receive the antenna base board  1 . A plurality of connecting pins  22  are extended outwards from the interior of the housing  2 , in which inner ends of two connecting pins  22  are soldering connected with the feed point  13  and the circuit shorting point  14  of the antenna base board  1  (please refer to  FIG. 3 ), while other two connecting pins  22  are used as fixed connecting pins for supporting. The packaging bottom portion  3  covers the bottom of the IC packaging housing  2  to completely package the antenna base board  1 . 
   The IC package antenna provided in the present invention packages the radiating member of the antenna to become an IC chip having the function of an antenna by using the packaging process for IC, this can meet the requirement of standardization and miniaturization for an antenna; and by using the connecting pins to make fixing of position, thus an SMD is formed that can be applied to SMT. 
   And more, please refer to  FIG. 4 , in which an embodiment of IC package antenna A of the present invention is placed on an electric circuit board B to form an antenna test environment. In the antenna test environment, data of size of the IC package antenna A are as follows: 
   A 1 =12.5 mm 
   A 2 =18 mm 
   A 3 =2.5 mm 
   While data of size of the grounding surface of the electric circuit board 
   B are as follows: 
   B 1 =107 mm 
   B 2 =40 mm 
   B 3 =25 mm 
   B 4 =17 mm 
     FIGS. 5 and 6  show the results of tests on the embodiment of the present invention, in which we can see the efficiencies of the antenna: 
   
     
       
         
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
             
           
             
                 
             
           
          
             
               Frequency (MHz) 
               824 
               880 
               960 
               1710 
               1880 
               1990 
               2170 
             
             
               3D gain (dBi) 
               −4.67 
               −3.27 
               −5.81 
               −3.30 
               −2.23 
               −2.44 
               −4.68 
             
             
               Efficiency % 
               28.88 
               48.46 
               43.46 
               51.03 
               51.84 
               60.65 
               34.03 
             
             
                 
             
          
         
       
     
   
   Therefore we can see from above that the present invention provides a good design of antenna. 
   Referring to  FIG. 7 , in the present invention, the antenna base board  1  is integrated thereon with a set of radio frequency circuit elements  15  to form a matched circuit that can adjust the impedance characteristic of the antenna, the radio frequency circuit elements  15  each can be a chip capacitor and/or a chip electric inductor. 
   With such a design, the IC package antenna can have multiple working frequency bands. Referring to  FIG. 8 , the IC package antenna has multiple connecting pins  2201 ˜ 2212  for being operated with various frequency bands. For example: 
   connecting pin  2201  is WLAN; 
   connecting pin  2202  is BT; 
   connecting pin  2203  is a fixed connecting pin; 
   connecting pin  2204  is a fixed connecting pin; 
   connecting pin  2205  is WLAN; 
   connecting pin  2206  is UWB; 
   connecting pin  2207  is GSM 4-band; 
   connecting pin  2208  is DCS/PCS; 
   connecting pin  2209  is a fixed connecting pin; 
   connecting pin  2210  is a fixed connecting pin; 
   connecting pin  2211  is WCDMA; 
   connecting pin  2212  is GPS.