Apple Inc.

Jennifer M Edwards

Mattia Pascolini

Hao Xu

Harish Rajagopalan

Simone Paulotto

Bilgehan Avser

Rodney Andres Gomez Angulo

Yijun Zhou

Matthew A Mow

Siwen Yong

Yiren Wang

Jayesh Nath

Matthew D Hill

Ming-Ju Tsai

Peter I Bevelacqua

Jiangfeng Wu

Robert W Schlub

Ruben Caballero

Daniel William Jarvis

Jared Mitchell Kole

Daniel C Wagman

Eric N Nyland

David A Hurrell

Bhaskara R Rupakula

Richard Hung Minh Dinh

Liang Han

Salih Yarga

Robert Scritzky

Ihtesham H Chowdhury

Jiechen Wu

Yakun Sun

Rohit U Nabar

Enrique Ayala Vazquez

Hongfei Hu

Yuehui Ouyang

Prashant H Vashi

Erdinc Irci

Benjamin J Kallman

Ioannis Pefkianakis

Thomas E Biedka

Richard Hung Dinh

Miguel C Christophy

Xu Han

Mithat C Dogan

Victor C Lee

David Garrido Lopez

Trent J Canales

Georgios Atmatzakis

Forhad Hasnat

Kexin Ma

Mikal Askarian Amiri

Arun R Varma

Subramanian Ramalingam

Guillaume Monghal

Iyappan Ramachandran

Zhenglian Cai

Panagiotis Theofanopoulos

Thomas W Yang

Soroush Akbarzadeh

Travis A Barbieri

Elisabeth Lang

Rodney A Gomez Angulo

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

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for storing a codebook in an integrated circuit. One of the methods includes storing, for an integrated circuit that comprises a memory, first data for a codebook in the memory; determining second data for the codebook using the first data; and sending, over a bus, the second data for the codebook to an antenna module separate from the integrated circuit.

User equipment codebook memory

An electronic device may be provided with a conductive sidewall. An aperture may be formed in the sidewall. The sidewall may have a cavity that extends from the aperture towards the interior of the device. The cavity may be filled with an injection-molded plastic substrate. A dielectric block having a dielectric constant greater than that of the injection-molded plastic substrate and the antenna layers may be embedded in the injection-molded plastic substrate. The dielectric block may at least partially overlap an antenna. The antenna may convey radio-frequency signals at a frequency greater than 10 GHz through the cavity, the dielectric block, the injection-molded plastic substrate, and the aperture. The dielectric block may increase the effective dielectric constant of the cavity, allowing the antenna to cover relatively low frequencies without increasing the size of the aperture.

Electronic devices having antennas with loaded dielectric apertures

An electronic device may be provided with a phased antenna array and a display cover layer. The phased antenna array may include a probe-fed dielectric resonator antenna that radiates through the cover layer. The antenna may include a dielectric resonating element that is excited by one or two feed probes. One or more floating parasitic elements and/or grounded parasitic elements may be patterned onto the dielectric resonating element. The parasitic elements may create boundary conditions on the dielectric resonating element that serve to isolate the antenna from cross polarization interference.

Electronic devices having dielectric resonator antennas with parasitic patches

A mobile phone includes a housing structure, the housing structure defining a side surface of the mobile phone, a front cover coupled to the housing structure and defining a front surface of the mobile phone, a rear cover coupled to the housing structure and defining a rear surface of the mobile phone, a display positioned below the front cover, a first directional antenna defining a first radiation pattern extending through the front surface of the mobile phone, a second directional antenna defining a second radiation pattern extending through the rear surface of the mobile phone, and a third directional antenna defining a third radiation pattern extending through the side surface of the mobile phone.

Handheld electronic device

An electronic device may be provided with first and second sidewalls, a rear wall, and a display. Multiple antenna panels may be used to convey radio-frequency signals at frequencies greater than 10 GHz. A first antenna panel may radiate through the display while second and third panels radiate through the first and second sidewalls. The second and third panels may be tilted at non-zero angles with respect to the sidewalls. The non-zero angles may be of opposite sign. The non-zero angles may have the same magnitude. The magnitude may be equal to 15 degrees, as one example. Tilting the panels in this way may allow the panels to collectively cover as much of a sphere around the device as possible, including out of coverage areas behind the rear wall caused by conductive material in the rear wall, without requiring additional panels to be disposed within the device.

Electronic devices having tilted antenna arrays

An electronic device may include a transmission line path having a signal conductor embedded in a substrate. A contact pad may be patterned on a surface of the substrate. A radio-frequency component may be mounted to the contact pad using solder. Multi-layer impedance matching structures may couple the signal conductor to the contact pad. The matching structures may include a set of via pads and a set of conductive vias coupled in series between the signal conductor and the contact pad. The area of the via pads may vary across the set of via pads and/or the aspect ratio of the conductive vias may vary across the set of conductive vias. The matching structures may perform impedance matching between the signal conductor and the radio-frequency component at frequencies greater than 10 GHz while occupying a minimal amount of space in the device.

Multi-layer matching structures for high frequency signal transmission

An electronic device may be provided with a dielectric cover layer, a dielectric substrate, and a phased antenna array on the dielectric substrate for conveying millimeter wave signals through the dielectric cover layer. The array may include conductive traces mounted against the dielectric layer. The conductive traces may form patch elements or parasitic elements for the phased antenna array. The dielectric layer may have a dielectric constant and a thickness selected to form a quarter wave impedance transformer for the array at a wavelength of operation of the array. The substrate may include fences of conductive vias that laterally surround each of the antennas within the array. When configured in this way, signal attenuation, destructive interference, and surface wave generation associated with the presence of the dielectric layer over the phased antenna array may be minimized.

Electronic device antenna arrays mounted against a dielectric layer

An electronic device may be provided with a phased antenna array and a display cover layer. The phased antenna array may include a probe-fed dielectric resonator antenna. The antenna may include a dielectric resonating element mounted to a flexible printed circuit. A feed probe may be formed from a patch of conductive traces on a sidewall of the resonating element. The feed probe may excite resonant modes of the resonating element. The resonating element may convey corresponding radio-frequency signals through the display cover layer. An additional feed probe may be mounted to an orthogonal sidewall of the resonating element for covering additional polarizations. Probe-fed dielectric resonator antennas for covering different polarizations and frequencies may be interleaved across the phased antenna array.

Electronic devices with probe-fed dielectric resonator antennas

An electronic device may be provided with a phased antenna array and a display cover layer. The phased antenna array may include a dielectric resonator antenna. The dielectric resonator antenna may include a dielectric resonating element embedded in a lower permittivity dielectric substrate. The substrate and the resonating element may be mounted to a flexible printed circuit. A slot may be formed in ground traces on the flexible printed circuit and aligned with the resonating element. The slot may excite resonant modes of the resonating element. The resonating element may convey corresponding radio-frequency signals through the cover layer. A dielectric matching layer may be interposed between the resonating element and the cover layer. If desired, the slot may radiate additional radio-frequency signals and the matching layer may have a tapered shape. Dielectric resonator antennas for covering different polarizations and frequencies may be interleaved across the array.

Electronic devices with dielectric resonator antennas

An electronic device may be provided with an antenna module and a phased antenna array on the module. The module may include a logic board, an antenna board surface-mounted to the logic board, and a radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) mounted surface-mounted to the logic board. The phased antenna array may include antennas embedded in the antenna board. The antennas may radiate at centimeter and/or millimeter wave frequencies. The logic board may form a radio-frequency interface between the RFIC and the antennas. Transmission lines in the logic board and the antenna board may include impedance matching segments that help to match the impedance of the RFIC to the impedance of the antennas. The module may efficiently utilize space within the device without sacrificing radio-frequency performance.

Integrated millimeter wave antenna modules

An electronic device may be provided with a cover layer and a phased antenna array mounted against the cover layer. Each antenna in the array may include a first patch element that is directly fed using first and second feeds and a second patch element that is directly fed using third and fourth feeds. A slot element may be formed in the first patch element. The first patch element may radiate in a first frequency band through the cover layer. The slot element may radiate in a second frequency band that is higher than the first frequency band through the cover layer. The second patch element may indirectly feed the slot element. Locating the radiating elements for each frequency band in the same plane may allow the antenna to radiate through the cover layer in both frequency bands with satisfactory antenna efficiency.

Electronic device having dual-band antennas mounted against a dielectric layer

An electronic device may be provided with a sidewall and an antenna module pressed against an interior surface of the sidewall. The module may include a phased antenna array. The sidewall may have apertures aligned with respective antenna in the array. The antennas may convey radio-frequency signals in first and second frequency bands greater than 10 GHz and with vertical and horizontal polarizations. Each aperture may include a corresponding cavity with non-linear cavity walls. The antennas may excite resonant cavity modes of the cavities that cause the cavities to radiate the radio-frequency signals as waveguide radiators. At the same time, the apertures may form a smooth impedance transition between the antennas and free space for the radio-frequency signals of both the horizontal and vertical polarizations.

Electronic devices having side-mounted antenna modules

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San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Jennifer M Edwards