A multilayer fractal patch antenna using LTCC technology

In this paper, a 10 GHz fractal patch antenna using Low Temperature Co-Fired Ceramic (LTCC) Technology has been used. A comparison between two different designs of radiating patch which are conventional patch and fractal patch has been done to get the better result. A Minkowski first iteration fractal micro strip patch antenna has been used in this design. This antenna design consists of eight layer of substrate. The ground plane at the back of layer 1, the feeding line at layer 6 and the radiating patch at the layer 7. The dielectric constant for LTCC technology is 5.9 and the substrate thickness is 0.096 mm. Ferro A6S has been used for the substrate and silver has been used for the patch. The overall thickness in this design is 0.8mm. A multilayer fractal patch antenna was design and optimized using the CST Microwave Studio Suite 2012. For the conventional radiating patch, the simulated S₁₁ results show a minimum of -13.99 dB at 10GHz and the maximum gain of 2.98 dB. The simulated S₁₁ results for fractal radiating patch show a minimum of -14.28 dB at 10.14GHz. The simulated radiation pattern shows a maximum gain of 10.02 dB. The bandwidth of the antenna has been increased from 2.33 MHz to 16.1 MHz. From the result, it can be seen that the radiating patch with fractal design gives better result compared to the conventional patch.