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A Recongurable PIFA Using a Switchable PIN-Diode and a Fine-Tuning Varactor for USPCS/WCDMA/m-WiMAX/WLAN
Jong-Hyuk Lim, Gyu-Tae Back, Young-Il Ko, Chang-Wook Song, and Tae-Yeoul Yun, Member, IEEE
AbstractA recongurable planar inverted-F antenna using a switchable PIN-diode and a ne-tuning varactor is presented for mobile communication applications. Selection of operating modes is achieved by switching the PIN-diode between radiators and tuning the varactor on an antennas shorting line. Mode I, with the PIN-diode off and tuning the varactor, operates for USPCS (1.851.99 GHz), WCDMA (1.922.18 GHz), and WLAN (5.155.825 GHz). As a result, the varactor used to achieve frequency ne-tuning does not need a DC bias circuit and can expand the bandwidth without increasing the physical size. Mode II, with the PIN diode on and the xed 0-V varactor, operates for USPCS and m-WiMAX (3.43.6 GHz). To optimize the antenna structure, a parametric analysis is performed by sweeping the length and width of the radiators. Furthermore, equivalent models of a PIN diode and a varactor are presented for accurate prediction of antenna performances which are also analyzed by varying diode parameters. All simulated results are conrmed with measured data. The peak gains show 2.84, 2.81, 1.25, and 1.49 dBi at USPCS, WCDMA, m-WiMAX, and WLAN, respectively. Index TermsPlanar inverted-F antenna (PIFA), PIN-diode, recongurable, switching, tuning, varactor.

I. INTRODUCTION

UE to rapid growth in mobile handset markets and customers needs, it is necessary to merge diverse wireless communication systems such as United States personal communications services (USPCS), wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA), mobile worldwide interoperability for microwave access (m-WiMAX), and wireless local area network (WLAN). In order to merge these service bands, the design of an antenna is needed and must be either of the multiband or frequency recongurable type. The frequency recongurable antenna offers many advantages such as compact size, similar radiation pattern, and proper gain for all desired frequency-bands, compared to the multiband antenna. For this reason, many antenna types have recently been developed in recongurable systems [1][5]. Design of internal antennas is very important for the miniaturization and aesthetical appearance of the mobile handset. Currently, the planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) is generally used for internal antennas because of its easy fabrication, low prole, low

cost, and reduction of special absorption rate (SAR) [6]. In addition, the PIFA offers small size and easy multiband operations by inserting the slot and slit on the radiator [6], [7]. However, the PIFA has a narrow bandwidth. To overcome this drawback, a recongurable PIFA was presented in [8] using a PIN-diode and discrete passive components. However, this antenna resulted in a size increase due to an added radiating element with a tuning circuit. In this paper, we propose a recongurable PIFA using a varactor and a PIN-diode. By varying capacitance of the varactor on an impedance matching short-line, frequency ne-tuning is easily achieved without increase of the antenna size or the addition of a bias circuit. Also, based on the PIN-diode on and off status between radiating elements, the antenna is able to select a very separate frequency band. The proposed antenna covers four service bands: USPCS (1.851.99 GHz), WCDMA (1.922.18 GHz), m-WiMAX (3.43.6 GHz), and WLAN (5.155.825 GHz). In Section II, a new recongurable PIFA design is presented with a parametric analysis and surface current distributions. Section III shows equivalent circuit models for a PIN-diode and a varactor. Section IV describes simulated and measured impedance characteristics, gains, efciencies, and radiation patterns. Finally, a conclusion is given in Section V. II. DESIGN OF RECONFIGURABLE PIFA A. Antenna Design As shown in Fig. 1, the proposed recongurable PIFA consists of main and additional radiating elements on an FR4 substrate with a relative permittivity of 4.4, a feeding conductor, a folded part, a short line, a PIN-diode [9], and a varactor [10]. The size of the ground plane has the dimension of 30 70 mm for a typical mobile handset. A top view of the proposed antenna is shown in Fig. 1(b). The switching PIN-diode is located between the main and additional radiators as a conducting bridge. Fig. 1(c) shows the right side view including the of the main radiator for the antenna size defolded part crease and the short line for the impedance matching. The tunable varactor is placed on the short line. Fig. 1(d) depicts the front view of the proposed antenna. When the PIN-diode is off (0 V), the antenna operates at the USPCS and WLAN bands. On the contrary, when the PIN-diode is on (1 V), the antenna operates in the USPCS and m-WiMAX bands because the surface current path of the antenna is lengthened into the additional radiating element

Manuscript received March 16, 2009; revised December 14, 2009; accepted January 31, 2010. Date of publication April 22, 2010; date of current version July 08, 2010. This work was supported by the Technology Innovation Program (or Industrial Strategic technology development program, 00007812) funded by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE, Korea). The authors are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, Korea (e-mail: taeyeoul@hanyang.ac.kr). Digital Object Identier 10.1109/TAP.2010.2048849

0018-926X/$26.00 2010 IEEE

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Fig. 1. Geometry of a proposed PIFA of unit in mm: (a) 3-dimensional view, (b) top view, (c) side view, and (d) front view.

through the PIN-diode. The varactor, which operates between approximately 5 pF at 4 V and 52 pF at 0 V, is used for ne frequency tuning between USPCS and WCDMA because the inductance of the shorting line is reduced by the capacitance of the varactor. Thus, frequency tuning can be obtained without change of antenna structure. To design and optimize the proposed antenna, many parameters were considered. First, it is important to determine the overall size of the antenna at a resonant frequency, which is dependent on the width and length of the radiator. As a result, quarter-wavelengths of the proposed PIFA are chosen as approximately 39, 21.4, and 13.6 mm at USPCS (1.92 GHz), m-WiMAX (3.5 GHz), and WLAN (5.5 GHz), respectively. In such a quarter-wavelength structure, 50 impedance matching of the antenna can easily be obtained by a proper choice of the and location of the short line. The antenna was feed spacing simulated with Microwave Studio of the CST [11]. B. Parametric Analysis of Radiating Elements In order to optimize the physical parameters of the antenna, the parametric analysis was performed, as shown in Fig. 2. First, at the lowest frequency band (USPCS), parameters , and are analyzed. According to an increase in , the resonant frequency shifts downward without change of the highest band (WLAN), as shown in Fig. 2(a). It can be seen that the optimized is 12.5 mm in the USPCS band. By increasing not value of

but also , the resonant frequency moves downward, only and are 5 as shown in Fig. 2(b). The optimized values of and 5.5 mm, respectively. Thus, the overall size can be reduced by the folded radiating element, . Next, at the highest frequency band (WLAN), parameters of and are analyzed. By increasing of the radiating element, the resonant frequency shifts downward, as shown in is 2 Fig. 2(c). It can be seen that the optimized value of mm for WLAN. By increasing , the resonant frequency shifts downward for the lower frequency, as shown Fig. 2(d). It is is 4.5 mm. shown that the optimized value of Other parameters were similarly optimized. As a result, the optimized values for the PIFA design are described in Table I. C. Surface Current Distributions To explain operations of the recongurable PIFA, the excited surface current distributions on the radiating elements were studied. Fig. 3 shows CST simulation results of the PIFA surface current distributions at 1.9/2.0, 3.5, and 5.5 GHz, respectively. As shown in Fig. 3(a), the surface current ows from the feed conductor to the end of the folded patch, in which the path length is close to the quarter-wavelength of 1.92 and 2.0 GHz for the USPCS and WCDMA bands. The path length, in this paper, was chosen as the inside surface current path. Fig. 3(b) shows that the surface current distributions for a PIN-diode on-status ow from the feed

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Fig. 2. Parametric analysis of radiating elements varying: (a)

W , (b) L

and

L , (c) W , and (d) L .

TABLE I OPTIMIZED PARAMETER VALUES FOR THE PIFA DESIGN

conductor to the end of the additional radiator, in which the path length is close to the quarter-wavelength of 3.5 GHz for the m-WiMAX band. Finally, Fig. 3(c) shows the surface current distributions for a PIN-diode off-status. Then the antenna operates at the highest frequency band around 5.5 GHz for the WLAN band. It can be observed that the surface current path in this case is close to the quarter-wavelength at 5.5 GHz. III. EQUIVALENT CIRCUIT MODELING OF DIODES In order to accurately predict the recongurability of the proposed antenna, it is essential to extract the diodes characteristics. Therefore, we performed an equivalent-circuit modeling of

Fig. 3. Simulated PIFA surface current distributions at (a) 1.9 GHz (USPCS) and 2.0 GHz (WCDMA) (b) 3.5 GHz (m-WiMAX), and (c) 5.5 GHz (WLAN).

Fig. 4. Equivalent circuit for a PIN-diode.

the diodes based on the through-delay-line de-embedding to obtain accurate measurement data. As shown in Fig. 4, we adopted a simplied RLC equivalent circuit for a PIN-diode without the

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Fig. 5. Simulated and measured S-parameters for the PIN-diode at: (a) 0 V (off), (b) 1 V (on).

Fig. 6. Equivalent circuit for a varactor.

surface mounting effect because the CST simulation tool cant apply a complex RLC model. It consists of a series parasitic inand an intrinsic capacitance in parallel with an ductance . Parameter values of the equivalent-cirintrinsic resistance cuit model are calculated by Agilent Advanced Design System (ADS). As a result, when the PIN-diode is off (0 V), the values , and are 3 k , 0.45 nH, and 0.08 pF, respectively. of On the contrary, when the PIN-diode is on (1 V), the values of , and are 3.5 , 0.45 nH, respectively. Fig. 5 shows simulated and measured S-parameters for a micro- semi MPP4203 PIN-diode [9] from 1 to 6 GHz. When the PIN-diode is off (0 V), it has an isolation of 11.32 dB at 5.5 GHz due to the small total capacitance (0.08 pF). On the contrary, when the PIN-diode is on (1 V), it has an insertion loss of 0.66 dB at 3.5 GHz due to the small resistance (3.5 ). The insertion loss caused by intrinsic resistance diminished an antenna gain. Fig. 6 shows an adopted equivalent circuit for the varactor, which omits a surface mounting effect for the same reason as in ,a the PIN-diode case. It consists of a parasitic inductance , and a variable capacitance in series. variable resistance

Fig. 7. Simulated and measured S-parameters for the varactor biased at: (a) 0 V, (b) 2 V, and (c) 4 V. TABLE II PARAMETER VALUES OF EQUIVALENT CIRCUITS FOR DIODES

Fig. 7 validates the equivalent-circuit model for an Inneon BBY59 varactor [10] with measured data from 1 to 6 GHz.

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Fig. 8. Conguration of measurement.

Fig. 10. Simulated gain and efciency variations depending on the PIN-diode capacitance for the mode I; (a) gain, (b) efciency.

When the varactor reverse voltage is 0 V, the maximum capacitance is 52.15 pF. On the contrary, when the varactor is biased at 2 and 4 V, the capacitances are 14.96 and 5.37 pF, respectively. These capacitances will compensate the inductance of the short line and change an operating frequency. changes from 0 to 4 V, it has an insertion When the varactor loss of 0.18 dB around 2 GHz. As shown in Figs. 5 and 7, the simulated and measured results for both diodes agree well. Finally, the parameter values of the equivalent circuits for the PIN-diode and the varactor are listed in Table II. The simulated and measured results for the proposed antenna using PIN- and varactor- diodes will be presented in the following sections. IV. ANTENNA SIMULATION AND MEASUREMENT Fig. 8 shows the DC bias setup of the proposed antenna with PIN- and varactor- diodes. The antenna is fed through the bias tee which supplies the RF signal and the DC bias for the varactor. For DC biasing the PIN-diode without leakage of RF signal to the DC bias line, the RF choke inductor (12 nH), which has a self-resonant frequency around 3.5 GHz and a peak impedance at that frequency, was attached on the additional of the PIN-diode for radiator. The forward bias voltage frequency switching was controlled by the DC bias between 0 and 1 V. The PIN-diode maximally consumes a forward bias current of 16 mA at 1 V. The varactor for the frequency ne-tuning was controlled by the DC bias between 0 and 4 V. of the proFig. 9 shows the simulated and measured posed PIFA for the different band operation depending on the

Fig. 9. Simulated and measured S for the proposed PIFA when: (a) PIN is off, (b) PIN is on, and (c) PIN is off and a varactor with 0 and 4 V.

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Fig. 11. Simulated gain and efciency variations depending on the varactor capacitance for the mode I; (a) gain, and (b) efciency.

Fig. 12. Simulated gain and efciency variations depending on the PIN-diode intrinsic resistance for the mode II; (a) gain, (b) efciency.

DC biases of the PIN-diode and varactor. Both the simulated and measured data satisfy the return loss of more than 6 dB for all bands. As shown in Fig. 9(a), when the PIN-diode is off, the antenna operates at the USPCS and WLAN. On the contrary, when the PIN-diode is on, the antenna operation shifts from WLAN to m-WiMAX without a change of the lower frequency band of the USPCS, as shown in Fig. 9(b). The simulated and measured with varying varactor bias conditions are shown in Fig. 9(c). When the varactor is biased at 4 V, the lower band just moves toward WCDMA slightly. As a result, the proposed PIFA can cover four bands: USPCS (1.851.99 GHz), WCDMA (1.922.18 GHz), m-WiMAX (3.43.6 GHz), and WLAN (5.155.35 GHz and 5.7255.825 GHz). The simulation and measurement results for input impedance matching showed good agreement. Fig. 10 shows simulated antenna gains and efciencies by varying the PIN-diode capacitance when the antenna operates in mode I (PIN-diode off). When the capacitance parameter of the PIN-diode increases from 0.08 to 0.3 pF, the peak frequencies of the gain and efciency decrease from 5.5 to 4.5 GHz. For the lower bands (USPCS and WCDMA) near 2 GHz, we had similar results. This means that the off-state capacitance affects antenna performances very much and should be small. In addition, when the varactor capacitance decreases, controlled by the bias from 0 to 4 V for ne tuning of the operating

Fig. 13. Simulated and measured radiation efciencies for each band.

band, the peak frequencies of the gain and efciency are shifted from USPCS to WCDMA band, as shown in Fig. 11(a) and (b). On the contrary, when the antenna operates in mode II (PINdiode on), the antenna gain and efciency are also simulated with variations of the PIN-diodes resistance in Fig. 12. The antenna gains and efciencies decreases when the resistance of the PIN-diode increases from 0 (ideal) to 3.5 . It should be noted that variations of the parasitic inductance of both diodes didnt affect antenna performances.

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Fig. 14. Simulated (dotted line) and measured (solid line) co-polarization radiation patterns in the xz-, xy-, and yz-planes, respectively at: (a) 1.95 GHz (USPCS, WCDMA), (b) 3.5 GHz (m-WiMAX), and (c) 5.5 GHz (WLAN).

Fig. 13 shows simulated and measured radiation efciencies for the mode I and II. When the PIN-diode is off, the radiation efciencies have near 90%. On the other hand, when the PIN-diode is on, the radiation efciency abruptly decreases to 63% for the m-WiMAX (3.353.69 GHz) band due to the resistance effect of the PIN-diode but remains 93% for the USPCS (1.851.99 GHz) band due to no radiation through the Pin-diode for this band. The simulated and measured co-polarization radiation patterns of the proposed PIFA are plotted at 1.95, 3.5, and 5.5 GHz according to the cutting plane in Fig. 14. The radiation patterns of the proposed PIFA were measured in an anechoic shielded chamber. As shown in Fig. 14(a), the radiation pattern in the xy-plane for the lower frequency band showed dipole-like characteristics and the radiation pattern in the yz-plane has an omni-directional characteristic because the surface current excited in the x-direction is dominant, as shown in Fig. 3(a). As shown in Fig. 14(b) and (c), however, the radiation patterns in the xy-plane for higher frequencies have nulls in several directions since the antenna has a dominant operating current to the y-direction and undesired weak surface currents to other

directions, as shown in Fig. 3(b) and (c). The measured radiation antenna peak gains are 2.84 and 2.81 dBi at the USPCS and WCDMA bands, respectively. In the diode-on case for the m-WiMAX, the peak gain is 1.49 dBi. On the contrary, when the diode is off for the WLAN, the peak gain is 1.25 dBi. The antenna gains for the m-WiMAX and WLAN bands are lower than the lowest bands because the weak surface currents of other directions contribute to additional radiation in cross-polarized directions. All the calculated and measured gain radiation patterns showed good agreement. Finally, the measured results are summarized in Table III. V. CONCLUSION The recongurable PIFA design with a PIN-diode and a tunable varactor covering the USPCS, WCDMA, m-WiMAX, and WLAN bands has been demonstrated with analysis and measurement. This paper also presented equivalent-circuit models of the PIN-diode and varactor. The proposed antenna was able to select a very separate frequency band and also achieved ne-frequency tuning without increasing the physical size. Overall, the

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TABLE III PERFORMANCE SUMMARY OF THE PROPOSED RECONFIGURABLE PIFA

simulated and measured results showed good agreement. Therefore, the proposed recongurable PIFA can be useful for an upcoming generation of mobile systems. REFERENCES
[1] J. T. Aberle, S. H. Oh, D. T. Auckland, and S. D. Rogers, Recongurable antennas for portable wireless devices, IEEE Antennas Propag. Mag., vol. 45, no. 6, pp. 148154, Dec. 2003. [2] G. H. Huff, J. Feng, S. Zhang, and J. T. Bernhard, A novel radiation pattern and frequency recongurable single turn square spiral microstrip antenna, IEEE Microw. Wireless Compon. Lett., vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 5457, Feb. 2003. [3] C. J. Panagamuwa, A. Chauraya, and J. C. Vardaxoglou, Frequency and beam recongurable antenna using photoconducting switches, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 449454, Feb. 2006. [4] A. C. K. Mak, C. R. Rowell, R. D. Murch, and C. L. Mak, Recongurable multiband antenna designs for wireless communication devices, IEEE Antennas Propag. Mag., vol. 55, no. 7, pp. 19191928, July 2007. [5] N. Behdad and K. Sarabandi, Dual-band recongurable antenna with a very wide tunability range, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 54, no. 2, pp. 409416, Feb. 2006. [6] Y. J. Cho, S. H. Hwang, and S. O. Park, A dual-band internal antenna with a parasitic patch for mobile handsets and the consideration of the handset case and battery, IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 4, pp. 429432, 2005. [7] P. Ciais, R. Staraj, G. Kossiavas, and C. Luxey, Design of an internal quad-band antenna for mobile phones, IEEE Microw. Wireless Compon. Lett., vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 148150, Apr. 2004. [8] M. Komulainen, M. Berg, H. Jantunen, E. T. Salonen, and C. Free, A frequency tuning method for a planar inverted-F antenna, IEEE Trans. Antennas Propag., vol. 56, no. 4, pp. 944955, Apr. 2008. [9] Data Sheet of MPP4203 PIN Diodes, Microsemi, Application Note [Online]. Available: http://www.microsemi.com [10] Data Sheet of BBY59, Inneon Technologies, Application Note [Online]. Available: http://www.inneon.com [11] CST Corporation, CST Microwave Studio (MWS) ver.2007 [Online]. Available: http://www.cst.com

Gyu-Tae Back received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Gyeongju University, Korea, in February 2004. He is currently working toward the M.S. degree at University of Hanyang, Seoul, Korea. His research interests include recongurable/multi input multi output (MIMO) antennas and the design of RF integrated circuits (RFICs).

Young-Il Ko received the B.Sc. degree in communication engineering from Daejin University, Korea, in 2008. He is currently working toward M.S. degree at the University of Hanyang, Seoul, Korea. His current research interests include microstrip and recongurable antenna design.

Chang-Wook Song received the B.Sc. degree in information and communication engineering from Dongeui University, Busan, Korea, in February 2007. He is currently working toward the M.S. degree at the University of Hanyang, Seoul, Korea. His research interests are recongurable/multi input multi output (MIMO) antennas and the design of RF integrated circuits (RFICs).

Jong-Hyuk Lim received the B.S. degree from Hongik University, Korea, in 2004 and the M.S. degree from Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea, in 2006, where he is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree. His research interests include antenna design, microwave circuit design, and wireless communication systems.

Tae-Yeoul Yun received the B.S.E.E. degree from the Kyungpook National University, Korea, in 1987, the M.S.E.E. degree from KAIST, Korea, in 1989, and the Ph.D. degree from Texas A&M University, College Station, in May 2001. From 1989 to 1996, he worked for an optical telecommunication system group, ETRI, Korea, where he developed 2.5-Gb/s and 10-Gb/s systems. From 2001 to 2003, he was an MMIC Designer at Triquint Semiconductor, Dallas, TX. Since March 2003, he has been a Professor at Hanyang University, Korea. He has published more than 100 technical papers. His research interests are RFICs, MMICs, antennas, and wireless communication systems.