Apple Inc.

Jiaxiao Niu

Jayesh Nath

Eduardo Jorge Da Costa Bras Lima

Mattia Pascolini

Andrea Ruaro

Mario Martinis

Dimitrios Papantonis

Carlo Di Nallo

Rex Tyler Ehman

Zheyu Wang

Michael R Parker

Yi Jiang

Trevor J Ness

Siwen Yong

Steven P Cardinali

Lijun Zhang

Ryan C Perkins

Jiangfeng Wu

James G Horiuchi

Mushtaq A Sarwar

Scott D Morrison

Siddharth Nangia

Johan Avendal

Max O Landaeus

Yuko N Kanagy

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 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 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.

Electronic device wide band antennas

An electronic device such as a wristwatch may be provided with a wireless local area network (WLAN) transceiver, satellite receiver, and cellular transceiver. A first antenna may include a radiating slot between a conductive housing wall and a display module. A second antenna may include conductive structures that radiate through a rear face of the device. The WLAN transceiver and the satellite receiver may be coupled to the first antenna. A switch may be coupled between the cellular transceiver and the first and second antennas. Control circuitry may adjust the switch to route signals between the cellular transceiver and a selected one of the first and second antennas based on wireless performance metric data so that the antenna exhibiting superior wireless performance at cellular telephone frequencies is used for cellular telephone communications regardless of environmental conditions.

Electronic devices having antenna diversity capabilities

An electronic device may have a display cover layer mounted to a metal housing. Electrical component layers such as a display layer, touch sensor layer, and near-field communications antenna layer may be mounted under the display cover layer. An antenna feed may have a positive feed terminal coupled to the electrical component layers and a ground feed terminal coupled to the metal housing. The electrical component layers may serve as an antenna resonating element for an antenna. The antenna may cover cellular telephone bands and may receive satellite navigation system signals. A system-in-package device may be mounted to the metal housing. A flexible printed circuit may extend between the electrical component layers and the system-in-package device. A mounting bracket for the system-in-package device may be provided with electrical isolation to enhance antenna performance in bands such as a satellite navigation system band.

Electronic device antennas with ground isolation

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Shanghai, China

Jiaxiao Niu