Apple Inc.

Eduardo Jorge Da Costa Bras Lima

Jayesh Nath

Mattia Pascolini

Mario Martinis

Carlo Di Nallo

Andrea Ruaro

Zheyu Wang

Dimitrios Papantonis

Jiaxiao Niu

Rex Tyler Ehman

Yi Jiang

Siwen Yong

Lijun Zhang

Trevor J Ness

James G Horiuchi

Erik G De Jong

Jason C Sauers

Makiko K Brzezinski

Xu Han

Matthew A Mow

Simone Paulotto

Sameer Pandya

Ryan C Perkins

Jiangfeng Wu

Michael R Parker

Johan Avendal

Christopher Matthew Werner

Hongfei Hu

Steven P Cardinali

Erdinc Irci

Mushtaq A Sarwar

Samuel B Schaevitz

Scott D Morrison

Siddharth Nangia

Yuko N Kanagy

Max O Landaeus

A wirelessly locatable tag may include a first housing member defining a first exterior surface of the tag, a second housing member removably coupled to the first housing member and defining a second exterior surface of the tag, and an antenna assembly. The antenna assembly may include an antenna frame defining a top surface and a peripheral side surface, a first antenna on the antenna frame along the peripheral side surface and configured to communicate with the electronic device using a first wireless protocol, a second antenna on the antenna frame along the peripheral side surface and configured to send a localization signal to the electronic device using a second wireless protocol different than the first protocol, and a third antenna on the antenna frame along the top surface and configured to communicate with the electronic device via a third wireless protocol different than the first and second protocols.

Antenna assembly for a wirelessly locatable tag

An electronic device such as a wristwatch device may have a housing with metal sidewalls and a display module having conductive display structures. The conductive display structures may be separated from the sidewalls by a slot element for a first antenna that runs around the display module. A feed element for the first antenna may be coupled between the display structures and the sidewalls. An antenna resonating element for a second antenna may be disposed within the slot element. A printed circuit may include additional antenna elements for the second antenna. The antenna resonating element may extend away from the feed element for the first antenna to provide improved isolation between the two antennas. The first antenna may be operable to provide coverage for frequencies that are lower than frequencies for which the second antenna may be operable to provide coverage.

Electronic device wide band antennas

An electronic device such as a wristwatch may be provided with a phased antenna array for conveying first signals at a first frequency between 10 GHz and 300 GHz and a non-millimeter wave antenna for conveying second signals at a second frequency below 10 GHz. The device may include conductive housing sidewalls and a display. Conductive structures in the display and the conductive housing sidewalls may define a slot element in the non-millimeter wave antenna. The phased antenna array may be mounted within the slot element, aligned with a spatial filter in the display, or aligned with a dielectric window in the conductive housing sidewalls. Control circuitry may process signals transmitted by the phased antenna array and a reflected version of the transmitted signals that has been received by the phased antenna array to detect a range between the device and an external object.

Electronic devices having millimeter wave ranging capabilities

An electronic device may include a rear housing wall, antenna resonating element, sensor board, and grounding ring. The grounding ring may couple antenna currents from the resonating element onto a ground trace on the sensor board. A switchable inductor may couple the grounding ring to the ground traces. The switchable inductor may be used to tune a frequency response of the antenna in a cellular low band. Additionally or alternatively, an inductor may couple the resonating element to the ground traces or other portions of an antenna ground. This inductor may serve to extend the effective length of the antenna resonating element in the cellular low band to compensate for dielectric loading by the rear housing wall, such as in examples where the rear housing wall is formed from zirconia.

Electronic devices having tunable antenna grounding rings

An electronic device such as a wristwatch may have a housing with metal portions such as metal sidewalls. The housing may form an antenna ground for an antenna. An antenna resonating element for the antenna may be formed from a stack of capacitively coupled component layers such as a display layer, touch sensor layer, and near-field communications antenna layer at a front face of the device. An additional antenna may be formed from a peripheral resonating element that runs along a peripheral edge of the device and the antenna ground. A rear face antenna may be formed using a wireless power receiving coil as a radio-frequency antenna resonating element or may be formed from metal antenna traces on a plastic support for light-based components.

Electronic device antennas

An electronic device may be provided with a housing, a logic board, and wireless circuitry on the logic board. The wireless circuitry may include first and second antennas formed from conductive traces on a surface of the logic board. The first and second antennas may include resonating element arms at opposing sides of the logic board. The first antenna may have a fundamental mode that radiates in a Bluetooth&#xae; communications band at 2.4 GHz. The second antenna may radiate in a first ultra-wideband communications band such as a 6.5 GHz ultra-wideband communications band. If desired, the second antenna may also radiate in a second ultra-wideband communications band such as an 8.0 GHz ultra-wideband communications band. In another suitable arrangement, a harmonic mode of the first antenna may radiate in the second ultra-wideband communications band.

Electronic devices having multi-band antennas

An electronic device may include a rear housing wall, antenna resonating element, coil, sensor board, and antenna grounding ring structures. The coil may receive wireless charging signals through the grounding ring structures and the rear housing wall. The grounding ring structures may include concentric ring-shaped traces. The ring-shaped traces may be separated by at least one gap. The ring-shaped traces and the gaps may configure the grounding ring structures to short antenna currents at relatively high frequencies from the antenna resonating element to a ground trace on the sensor board while blocking currents at relatively low frequencies. This may allow the ground trace to form part of an antenna without substantially impairing wireless charging efficiency of the coil.

Electronic devices having antenna grounding rings

An electronic device may have a housing with metal sidewalls. One of the metal sidewalls may have an opening. The electronic device may have a speaker module that has a speaker housing member. Conductive structures on the speaker housing member may have an opening that forms a slot element. The opening of the metal sidewall may be aligned with slot element. The slot element and an interior cavity of the speaker housing member may form a cavity-backed slot antenna. An antenna feed structure may be disposed at the opening of the speaker housing member. An antenna feed may be directly coupled to the antenna feed structure. The antenna feed structure may indirectly feed the slot antenna resonating element by capacitive coupling. A sealing member may be disposed at the opening of the metal sidewall.

An electronic device such as a wristwatch may have a housing with metal sidewalls and a display having conductive display structures. Printed circuits having corresponding ground traces may be coupled to the display for conveying data to and/or from the display. The conductive display structures may be separated from the metal sidewalls by a gap. A conductive interconnect may be coupled to the metal sidewalls and may extend across the gap to the conductive display structures. The conductive interconnect may be coupled to the ground traces on the printed circuits and/or may be shorted or capacitively coupled to the conductive display structures. When configured in this way, the metal sidewalls, the conductive display structures, and the conductive interconnect may define the edges of a slot antenna resonating element for a slot antenna.

Electronic device slot antennas

An electronic device may include an antenna element, coil, sensor board, and grounding ring structures. The coil may receive wireless charging signals through the grounding ring structures. The grounding ring structures may include concentric ring-shaped traces separated by at least one gap. The ring-shaped traces and gaps may configure the grounding ring structures to short antenna currents at relatively high frequencies from the antenna element to a ground trace on the sensor board while blocking currents at relatively low frequencies. The grounding ring structures may include conductive wings that increase capacitive coupling between the grounding ring structures and the antenna element. The grounding ring structures may be soldered to the antenna element. The antenna element and the grounding ring structures may be formed from traces patterned on the same substrate. The ground trace may form part of an antenna without substantially impairing wireless charging efficiency of the coil.

Electronic devices having extended antenna grounding rings

An electronic device such as a wristwatch may have a housing with metal sidewalls and a display having conductive display structures. The display structures may be separated from the sidewalls by a slot for an antenna that runs around the display module. A conductive interconnect may be coupled between the sidewalls and the display structures. A feed and tuning element may be coupled between the display structures and the sidewalls. A first length of the slot from the interconnect to the tuning element may radiate in a satellite band and a cellular band. A second length of the slot from the interconnect to the feed may radiate in a 2.4 GHz band. Harmonics of the second length may radiate in bands at and above 5.0 GHz. If desired, the tuning element may be omitted, and the antenna may be coupled to separate low band and high band matching circuits.

An electronic device such as a wristwatch may have a housing with metal sidewalls and a display having conductive display structures. The display structures may be separated from the sidewalls by a slot for an antenna that runs around the display module. A conductive interconnect may be coupled between the sidewalls and the display structures. A feed and tuning element may be coupled between the display structures and the sidewalls. A first length of the slot from the interconnect to the tuning element may radiate in a satellite band and a cellular band. A second length of the slot from the interconnect to the feed may radiate in a 2.4 GHz band. Harmonics of the second length may radiate in bands at and above 5.0 GHz. If desired clip and blade structures may form conductive paths for coupling antenna elements.

An electronic device such as a wristwatch may have a housing with metal sidewalls and a dielectric rear wall. The metal sidewalls may form an antenna ground for an antenna. The antenna may include an antenna resonating element formed from conductive traces patterned directly onto an interior surface of the dielectric rear wall. The conductive traces may define a slot at the dielectric rear wall. A coil and a sensor may be mounted to the dielectric rear wall within the slot. Radio-frequency transceiver circuitry may be coupled to the conductive traces and the antenna ground and may transmit and receive radio-frequency signals through the dielectric rear wall using the antenna. Wireless power receiver circuitry may use the coil to receive wireless power signals through the dielectric rear wall. The sensor may emit and/or receive light through a transparent window in the dielectric rear wall.

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Eduardo Jorge Da Costa Bras Lima