Apple Inc.

David Garrido Lopez

Harish Rajagopalan

Rodney Andres Gomez Angulo

Forhad Hasnat

Umar Azad

Mattia Pascolini

Subramanian Ramalingam

Mikal Askarian Amiri

Lu Zhang

Panagiotis Theofanopoulos

Pietro Romano

Carlo Di Nallo

Bilgehan Avser

Robert Scritzky

Matthew D Hill

Siwen Yong

Daniel C Wagman

Jennifer M Edwards

Simone Paulotto

Jiangfeng Wu

Melody L Kuna

Mario Martinis

Eric N Nyland

Carli E Oster

Ihtesham H Chowdhury

Carlo Catalano

David A Hurrell

Georgios Atmatzakis

Stuart M Nevill

Nikolaj P Kammersgaard

Soroush Akbarzadeh

Jiechen Wu

Alexander P Niemeyer

Thomas W Yang

Jordi Antoni Garcia Selva

Aobo Li

Russell K Williams

Colden N Eldridge

Brandon Z Frank

Matthew J Wilander

An electronic device may be provided with a phased antenna array that radiates at a frequency greater than 10 GHz. The array may include a first set of dielectric resonator antennas arranged in a first row and a second set of dielectric resonator antennas in a second row offset from the first row. Each dielectric resonator antenna may have dielectric resonating element with a base portion and a stepped portion. The stepped portions of the antennas in the first set may be arranged to be distant from the stepped portions of the antennas in the second set. The antennas in the first set may be arranged to be more distant from an electronic device sidewall than the antennas in the second set. Configured in this manner, the array may exhibit reduced inter-coupling between dielectric resonator antennas in the first set and dielectric resonator antennas in the second set.

Electronic devices with dielectric resonator antennas

An electronic device may be provided with a phased antenna array having a dielectric resonator antenna. The antenna may include a first dielectric block on a printed circuit, a second dielectric block on the first dielectric block, and a third dielectric block on the second dielectric block. At least the second and third dielectric blocks may have different dielectric constants. A parasitic element may be disposed between the second and third dielectric resonating elements and/or a parasitic element may be disposed on a radiative face of the third dielectric resonating element. The parasitic elements may act as electromagnetic mirrors that form images of electric fields in the dielectric resonating elements. The images may make the dielectric resonating elements exhibit a greater electromagnetic height than physical height. This may allow for a reduction in the overall physical height of the dielectric resonator antenna without sacrificing wireless performance.

Multi-layer dielectric resonator antennas with parasitic elements

An electronic device may be provided with a phased antenna array having a dielectric resonator antenna. The antenna may include a first dielectric block on a printed circuit, a second dielectric block on the first dielectric block, and a third dielectric block on the second dielectric block. At least the second and third dielectric blocks may have different dielectric constants. The antenna may be fed by one or more feed probes. Each feed probe may include respective conductive via and a conductive patch coupled to the conductive via. The conductive via may extend through the first dielectric block. The conductive patch may be sandwiched between the first and second dielectric blocks. The conductive patch may have a width that configures the conductive patch to form a smooth impedance transition between the conductive via and each of the dielectric blocks despite the different materials used to form the antenna.

Feed patches for multi-layer dielectric resonator antennas

An electronic device may be provided with a phased antenna array that radiates at a frequency greater than 10 GHz. The array may include a dielectric resonator antenna having a dielectric column with non-planar sidewalls that include planar portions and corrugated portions with grooves and ridges, that include sidewall steps, and/or that include angled sidewall portions. The dielectric resonator antenna may include a first dielectric column and a second dielectric column stacked on the first dielectric column. The second column may be narrower and may have a higher dielectric constant than the first column or may have the same width but a lower dielectric constant than the first column. This may serve to broaden the bandwidth of the dielectric resonator antenna relative to scenarios where the dielectric resonator antenna includes only a single dielectric resonating element having only planar sidewalls.

Electronic devices with dielectric resonator antennas having non-planar sidewalls

An electronic device may include a conductive housing with a rear wall and a sidewall. A display may be mounted to the sidewall and may include a conductive display structure separated from the sidewall by a slot. An antenna arm may be interposed between the conductive display structure and the rear wall. A first inductor may couple the conductive display structure to the housing and may compensate for a distributed capacitance between the antenna arm and the conductive display structure. A second inductor may couple the antenna arm to the rear wall and may compensate for a distributed capacitance between the antenna arm and the rear wall. A speaker may be co-located with the antenna. A third inductor may couple the antenna arm to the rear wall to allow antenna currents to bypass the speaker.

Electronic devices with display-overlapping antennas

An electronic device may be provided with an antenna module having a substrate. A phased antenna array of dielectric resonator antennas and a radio-frequency integrated circuit for the array may be mounted to one or more surfaces of the substrate. The dielectric resonator antennas may include dielectric columns excited by feed probes. The feed probes may be printed onto sidewalls of the dielectric columns or may be pressed against the sidewalls by biasing structures. A plastic substrate may be molded over each dielectric column and each of the feed probes in the array. The feed probes may cover multiple polarizations. The array may include elements for covering multiple frequency bands. The dielectric columns may be aligned a longitudinal axis and may be rotated at a non-zero and non-perpendicular angle with respect to the longitudinal axis.

Dielectric resonator antenna modules

A portable electronic device can include a housing defining an aperture and a display positioned in the aperture. The display and the housing can define an internal volume and a speaker assembly can be positioned in the internal volume. The speaker assembly can include a speaker enclosure sealed to the housing within the internal volume, the speaker enclosure and the housing defining a speaker volume, and a speaker module in fluid communication with the speaker volume, the speaker module including a diaphragm positioned at an aperture defined by the speaker volume, the diaphragm defining multiple ridges.

Portable electronic device

An electronic device may have a first conductive sidewall at an upper end, a second conductive sidewall at a lower end, and a conductive rear wall. First and second antennas may be formed at the upper end and may include slots with edges defined by the first sidewall and the rear wall. Third, fourth, fifth, and sixth antennas may be formed at the lower end and may include slots with edges defined by the second sidewall and the rear wall. Each antenna may cover multiple frequency bands. First order and third order modes of the slots may contribute to the frequency responses of the third through sixth antennas. A display controller may be mounted at the lower end and may impose a lower limit on the frequencies covered by the third through sixth antennas. The first and second antennas may cover lower frequencies than the third through sixth antennas.

Electronic devices having antennas for covering multiple frequency bands

An electronic device may be provided an antenna, a display, and a housing. The display may include a conductive display structure and a cover layer. The housing may include peripheral conductive structures and a conductive rear wall. The peripheral structures may include a ledge separated from the conductive display structure by a gap. The peripheral structures and the rear wall may define opposing edges of a slot element for the antenna. Conductive bridging structures may be coupled between the conductive display structure and the ledge across the gap. The bridging structures may at least partially overlap locations along the length of the slot element where antenna currents around the slot element exhibit a maximum magnitude. The bridging structures may align the phase of current induced on the ledge with the phase of the current induced on the conductive display structure to maximize antenna efficiency through the cover layer.

Electronic device slot antennas

An electronic device may include first, second, and third antennas and conductive housing structures. The first, second, and third antennas may each include slots having open ends defined by gaps in the conductive housing structures. The second antenna may be interposed between the first and third antennas. The first and second antennas may convey signals at the same frequencies. The third antenna may convey signals at a lower frequency than the first and second antennas. A switch may be coupled across the third slot and may have a first state at which the switch forms a closed end of the third slot and a second state at which the third slot has two opposing open ends. Control circuitry may selectively activate one of two feeds for the third antenna and may adjust the switch so that the third antenna exhibits satisfactory antenna efficiency regardless of environmental conditions for the device.

An electronic device may include a peripheral conductive housing sidewall with an integral ledge extending towards the device interior. A display cover layer may be supported by the integral ledge. A slot antenna may be formed from a slot in the integral ledge. The integral ledge may be mounted to a surface of a substrate and coupled to a conductive rear housing wall by a conductive layer extending over an additional surface of the substrate. The sidewall may include a vertical portion extending from the ledge to the rear wall. The slot antenna may be fed via near-field coupling using a conductive patch that is located within the slot at the surface of the substrate. The conductive layer, rear housing wall, and vertical portion may form a cavity for the slot antenna. The conductive layer may isolate the slot from interference with a battery, display circuitry, or other components.

Electronic devices having housing-integrated antennas

An electronic device may be provided with control circuitry and doublets of first and second antennas that are used to determine the position and orientation of the device relative to external wireless equipment. The control circuitry may determine the relative position and orientation of the external equipment by measuring the angle of arrival of radio-frequency signals from the external equipment. Each doublet may include first and second cavity-backed slot antennas. The first and second antennas may each include a first slot element that is directly fed and a second slot element that is parasitically fed by the first slot element. The first slot element may radiate in an ultra-wideband communications band at 8.0 GHz and the second slot element may radiate in an ultra-wideband communications band at 6.5 GHz. The doublet may be aligned with a dielectric window in a conductive sidewall for the device.

Electronic device having multi-frequency ultra-wideband antennas

An electronic device may have peripheral conductive structures and a conductive layer that define edges of a slot element for a slot antenna. The slot element may be configured to cover wireless communications in a 1575 MHz satellite navigation band and 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz wireless local area network bands. A tuning circuit may be coupled across the slot approximately half way across the length of the slot. The antenna tuning circuit may include an inductor coupled in series with a notch filter (in scenarios where the slot is long enough to cover the 1575 MHz satellite navigation band in its fundamental mode) or may include a capacitor coupled in series with a notch or low pass filter. The fundamental mode and one or more harmonic modes of the slot element may cover the satellite navigation and wireless local area network bands.

Electronic devices having multi-band slot antennas

An electronic device may be provided with a conductive wall. A gap in the wall may divide the wall into first and second segments. A ground may be separated from the wall by first, second, and third slots that form radiating elements for first, second, and third non-near-field communications antennas. First and second conductive structures may be coupled between the wall and the ground. A near-field communications antenna may include a first feed terminal coupled to the first segment and a second feed terminal coupled to the second segment. The antenna may convey signals over a conductive loop path that includes portions of the first and second segments, the antenna ground, and the first and second conductive structures. A differential or single-ended signal transmission line may be coupled to the terminals. Phase shifters may configure the signals to be out of phase at the feed terminals.

Electronic device having slots for handling near-field communications and non-near-field communications

An electronic device may have conductive housing structures and first, second, third, and fourth slot antennas having respective first, second, third, and fourth slot elements in the conductive housing structures. The third slot element may be interposed between the first and second slot elements and the second slot element may be interposed between the third and fourth slot elements. Switching circuitry may be coupled between a transceiver and the slot elements. Control circuitry may control the switching circuitry to activate a selected pair of the slot antennas based on an orientation of the device or other data. The active pair of antennas may convey radio-frequency signals at the same frequencies using a multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) communications scheme. In this way, the device may perform wireless communications at relatively high data throughputs regardless of how the device is being held by a user.

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Campbell, CA, United States of America

David Garrido Lopez