Design of miniaturised meandered loop onchip antenna with enhanced gain using shorted partially shield layer for communication at 9.45 GHz

Abstract

A significantly miniaturised meandered loop on-chip antenna (MeLOCA) for communication at 9.45 GHz has been proposed. First, a meandered loop antenna size is reduced and its gain is enhanced by introducing a partially shield layer (PSL). Then, the antenna size is further reduced with a shorted conical pin connecting the antenna and PSL. The PSL provides capacitive loading and shifts resonating frequency of the reference antenna from 23 to 11.07 GHz. Also, it reduces substrate loss by obstructing EM wave propagation towards the lossy Silicon substrate and offers gain enhancement. Moreover, shorting to PSL offers an enhanced electrical length and shifts resonating frequency at 9.45 GHz. Thus, combination of PSL and shorting pin leads to realise the optimally designed MeLOCA size of 2.1 × 2 mm2 with reduction up to λ0/15.11. Simulated maximum gain and efficiency of -29 dB and 21.07%, respectively, make the antenna a suitable candidate for short range communication. Also, maximum of 16 and 20 dB and minimum of 3 and 5.6 dB isolations between co-polarisation and cross-polarisation components are achieved, respectively, in E and H planes. A prototype has been fabricated using 0.18 μm CMOS technology and good agreement between simulated and measured return loss characteristics is observed.