Design of a 900/1800 MHz dual-band LTCC chip antenna for mobile communications applications

This article presents the design simulation, implementation and measurement of a miniaturized 900/1800 MHz dual-band low temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) chip antenna for mobile communication applications. The use of a helix-monopole type dual-band antenna is realized in a multi-layer printed LTCC structure. The Ansoft HFSS 3-D EM simulator, based on the finite-element method (FEM), is employed for design simulation. In the simulated structure, the PCB board of the RF circuit, connected to the chip antenna, is also included. A helix/three-monopole structure chip antenna is designed to achieve enough bandwidth at the 900 and 1800 MHz bands. Although the measured antenna performance is shifted to a higher frequency for both the 900 and 1800 MHz bands, the antenna patterns of the realized chip antenna are very close to the omnidirectional pattern of a dipole antenna at 900 and 1800 MHz.