Analysis and Application of an On-Package Planar Inverted-F Antenna

An on-package planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) is described. The on-package PIFA consists of a single folded metal plate and has several advantages, including small size, light weight, low cost, and ease of fabrication. The antenna radiation pattern is omnidirectional in the H-plane. The coupling effect between the on-package PIFA and the radio-frequency (RF) components in the shielding package was studied. The antenna performance rarely changes and the isolation between the antenna and the RF components can be maximized when the locations of the components are appropriately arranged in the package. Finally, a wireless local-area network (WLAN) front-end module (FEM) including the switch, low-pass filter (LPF), bandpass filter (BPF), and power amplifier (PA), is embedded into the shielding package of the antenna. The error vector magnitude (EVM) of the resultant antenna integrated FEM, together with a WLAN card containing the baseband/medium-access control (MAC) circuitry, is tested. Good performance is obtained, showing the usability of the proposed antenna configuration.