PIERS Proceedings, Xian, China, March 2226, 2010

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Design of a 1.575 GHz Helical LTCC Chip Antenna for GPS

Application
Tao Huang and Yali Qin
Key Lab of Fiber Telecomunication, Colleage of Information Engineering
Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China

Abstract Based on the characteristics of high performance and miniaturization of Low Temperature Co-fired Ceramic (LTCC) technology, this paper presents the design simulation of a
miniaturized helical LTCC chip antenna, the helical radiating patch is realized by using via holes
to connect upper- and lower-layer radiating elements which are in staggered arrangement. By
employing the Ansoft HFSS 3-D EM simulator to design and simulate, the antenna could be
got with the central frequency 1.575 GHz, bandwith 60 MHz and size 10 mm 3 mm 0.77 mm.
The simulation results show the antenna completely meet the needs of GPS and other wireless
communication products with small volume and high integrability.
1. INTRODUCTION

The exploding growth of wireless communications systems leads to an increasing demand for integrated compact low-cost antennas, to satisfy these needs, Low Temperature Cofired Ceramic
(LTCC) technology has been extensively studied by many researchers due to its good RF properties, its excellent hermeticity, its flexibility in realizing an arbitrary number of layers [1, 2]. The most
direct way of reducing the dimensions of the antenna is the use of very high dielectric constant of
the LTCC material. However, in the view point of the antenna, the high dielectric constant causes
serious problems to the design of antennas with high gain and good radiation pattern, especially,
for endfire antenna. Also,another concept to reduce the size of a microstrip patch antenna at a
given resonant frequency is to increase its electrical surface-current length by changing the radiating
elements shape, such as utilization of a meandering line structure and helical structure [3, 4].
In this paper, a miniaturized helical LTCC chip antenna is proposed for GPS application, the
Ansoft HFSS 3-D EM simulator, based on the finite-element method (FEM), is employed for design
simulation [5]. The simulation results for return loss and radiation pattern are presented.
2. PRINCIPLE OF HELICAL LTCC CHIP ANTENNA

Figure 1(a) shows the geometry of the proposed structure, the helical radiating patch is realized
by using via holes to connect upper- and lower-layer radiating elements which are in staggered
arrangement. Figure 1(b) shows the radiating element of helical LTCC chip antenna,the currents
on the horizontal segments (parallel to Y axis) of the radiating element have same direction and,
hence, they have main contribution to the desired radiation field. On the other hand, the directions
of currents on any two symmetrically vertical segments (parallel to X axis) and the via hole segments
(parallel to Z axis) are opposite, which have much lower contribution to the desired radiation field.
The lowest resonance of the helical LTCC chip antenna occurs when the total length in the Y direction is approximately a quarter of waveguide wavelength, but for a fixed total length in the
X-direction and Z-direction, if the total length in the Y -direction is less than approximately one
eighth of waveguide wavelength, the antenna gain and other antenna performances will all become
worse with the decrement of the spacing between the radiating element, so blindly decrease in
the physical size of antennas shouldnt be the sole aim for designing antennas, a variety of factors
must be integrated to seek for the best balance point between the physical size and the electric
performance parameter when we design the LTCC antenna.
3. PROPOSED ANTENNA DESIGN

Figure 2 shows the geometry of the proposed stacked helical LTCC chip antenna mounted FR-4
substrate, the dimension of the FR-4 circuit board is 53 mm 20 mm 0.77 mm and the size of the
ground plane is 40mm20 mm. The antenna occupies a small volume of 10 mm 3 mm 0.77 mm
and is fabricated in a ceramic substrate that has a relative dielectric constant of 27, the upperand lower-layer radiating elements are in staggered arrangement, the dimension of the radiating
element is 2.54 mm 0.3 mm, the spacing between every Radiating Element is 0.67 mm, the height
of the via hole which connect upper- and lower-layer radiating element is 0.7 mm. A 50 microstrip

Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, Xian, China, March 2226, 2010

(a)

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(b)

Figure 1: (a) Geometry of helical LTCC chip antenna in the Ansoft HFSS. (b) Radiating element of helical
LTCC chip antenna.

Figure 2: Geometry of the proposed antenna mounted FR-4 substrate.

line is utilized to excite the compact chip antenna,the impedance matching is obtained mainly by
optimizing the structure of the helical line and junction part connected to the feed line.
4. SIMULATION RESULTS

Figure 3 shows the simulated return loss for various spacing between every radiating element,it is
noted that as it increases, the resonant frequency decreases. It can be seen that as the spacing
between every Radiating Element is 0.67 mm (the red line in Figure 3), the resonant frequency of
the antenna is 1.575 GH and a 10 dB return loss bandwidth is about 60 MHz (1.54 GH1.60 GH).
Figure 4 shows the simulated return loss for various via-hole height, as can be seen, the resonant
frequency of the helical antenna decreases with the increment of the via-hole height. The radiation
patterns of the antenna at the 1.575 GH are shown in Figure 5, if the antenna is vertically oriented
(x-z plane), the maximum gain of 1.201 dBi is obtained. Furthermore, the maximum gains are
1.321 dBi and 1.316 dBi, respectively, in x-y plane and y-z plane, these patterns are good enough
to be used for GPS application. Figure 6 shows the simulated 3D radiation pattern of the proposed
antenna for 1.575 GHz.

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Figure 3: Simulated return loss for different values of spacing between radiating element.

Figure 4: Simulated return loss for different values of the via-hole height.

Figure 5: Radiation patterns of the proposed antenna at 1.575 GHz.

Figure 6: The simulated 3D radiation pattem of

the proposed antenna at 1.575 GHz.

5. CONCLUSIONS

The design simulation of a 1.575 GHz helical LTCC chip antenna using LTCC multi-layer technology is presented. The required resonant frequency and return loss bandwidth was achieved by
controlling the spacing between every radiating element and the height of via-hole, in order to meet
the better requirements for GPS applications, increasing the bandwidth and gain are the goals for
continuing the study.

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