Apple Inc.

Qishan Yu

Berke Cetinoneri

Ioannis Sarkas

Samia El Amrani

James T Yang

Wei Hsin Yao

Moon Jung Kim

Abbas Jamshidi Roudbari

Harish Rajagopalan

Scott P Mullins

Simone Paulotto

Jeffrey M Thoma

Xueting Liu

Robert S Sorensen

Chia-Feng Lin

Systems, methods, and devices are provided for detecting the presence of an object near an electronic device. A radio frequency (RF) system of an electronic device may include a first circuit that includes one or more transmission paths for transmitting a reference signal external to the electronic device. The RF system may include a second circuit that includes one or more receiving paths for receiving a reflection signal based on the reference signal. The RF system may also include a processor that may instruct the RF system to perform a comparison between the reference signal and the reflection signal, determine whether the object is in proximity based at least in part on whether comparison results exceed a comparison threshold, and decrease power output by the RF system below the comparison threshold.

Systems and methods for object detection by radio frequency systems

Techniques for implementing and/or operating a radio frequency system, which includes a logic board that outputs an analog electrical signal indicative of data to be wirelessly transmitted from the radio frequency system and a remote head. The remote head includes an antenna that generates an electromagnetic wave to facilitate wirelessly transmitting the data, an antenna integrated circuit implemented using a first semiconductor manufacturing technique, in which the antenna integrated circuit amplifies the analog electrical signal to generate a first amplified analog electrical signal, and a remote front-end integrated circuit coupled between the antenna integrated circuit and the antenna. The remote front-end integrated circuit is implemented using a second semiconductor manufacturing technique different from the first semiconductor manufacturing technique and amplifies the first amplified analog electrical signal based on a target output power of the antenna to generate a second amplified analog electrical signal indicative of the data.

Radio frequency remote head front-end circuitry systems and methods

Systems and methods for improving communication reliability of a radio frequency system that includes an antenna integrated circuit, which includes an antenna amplifier unit that outputs a first analog electrical signal that indicates data, a transceiver integrated circuit implemented using a first semiconductor manufacturing technique, in which the transceiver integrated circuit includes a transceiver amplifier unit that outputs a second analog electrical signal that indicates the data, and a driver integrated circuit implemented using a second semiconductor manufacturing technique. The driver integrated circuit includes an intermediate amplifier, which outputs a third analog electrical signal that indicates the data, and intermediate routing circuitry, which routes the first analog electrical signal to the intermediate amplifier and the third analog electrical signal to the transceiver integrated circuit during reception and routes the second analog electrical signal to the intermediate amplifier and the third analog electrical to the antenna integrated circuit during transmission.

Radio frequency front-end circuitry intermediate driver systems and methods

An electronic device may be provided with a phased antenna array controlled by phase and magnitude controllers within an integrated circuit. The array may be formed on antenna layers and the integrated circuit may be mounted to transmission line layers of a dielectric substrate. A ground plane may separate the transmission line layers from the antenna layers. A connector may be mounted to the surface of the transmission line layers and may be coupled to the integrated circuit using conductive traces. A passive resonator may be formed in the antenna layers and may include conductive structures that resonate at one-quarter of the effective wavelength of operation of the array to form an open circuit impedance for surface currents generated on the ground plane by the array. This may serve to block the surface currents from scattering at an edge of the ground plane and leaking onto the integrated circuit.

Electronic devices having antenna module isolation structures

A communication device has multiple antennas in an antenna array, and applies the same input power to each antenna. A controller of the communication device instructs phase shifters to form a first subarray with a first pair of the antennas and a second subarray with a second pair of the antennas. The controller causes the first subarray to generate a first beam and causes the second subarray to generate a second beam, wherein the first beam combines in phase with the second beam to generate a coarse beam. The coarse beam may have increased beam width while exhibiting decreased peak gain loss.

Systems and methods for coarse scan beamforming using subarrays

Techniques for implementing and/or operating a radio frequency system, which includes a logic board having a transceiver integrated circuit and a remote head coupled to the logic board via a one or more electrical connectors. The remote head includes an antenna circuit board having a pad, an antenna formed on a surface of the antenna circuit board opposite the pad, and a remote head system-in-package. The remote head system-in-package includes a system-in-package circuit board having a pin that interfaces with the pad on the antenna circuit board and an integrated circuit device coupled to a surface of the system-in-package circuit board opposite the pin, in which the integrated circuit device includes one or more amplifier units that each amplifies a corresponding analog electrical signal communicated with the antenna.

Systems and methods for driving using a radio-frequency integrated circuit to drive one or more front end modules. The front end modules provide signal flexibility to an electronic device. The radio-frequency integrated circuit drives the one or more front end modules via dual-pole, dual-throw switches that enable a pair of radio-frequency chains in the radio-frequency integrated circuit to drive two pairs of radio-frequency chains in each of two connected front end modules.

Radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) external front-end module

Systems, methods, and devices are provided for correcting compression distortion of wireless signals due to variations in operation parameters of the radio frequency system. The method may include using circuitry to generate a reference signal that is not pre-distorted by a processing block. The method may involve receiving an envelope signal representative of a signal being transmitted by a transceiver. The method may also involve determining a first peak-to-average ratio of the envelope signal and receiving a second peak-to-average ratio of the reference signal. The method may additionally involve determining a difference between the first peak-to-average ratio and the second peak-to-average ratio. The method may also include adjusting a gain of an amplifier of the transceiver based on the difference.

Systems and methods for compression distortion compensation for wireless signals

Systems and methods for improving communication reliability of a radio frequency system that includes an antenna integrated circuit, which includes an antenna amplifier unit that outputs a first analog electrical signal that indicates data, a transceiver integrated circuit implemented using a first semiconductor manufacturing technique, in which the transceiver integrated circuit includes a transceiver amplifier unit that outputs a second analog electrical signal that indicates the data, and a driver integrated circuit implemented using a second semiconductor manufacturing technique. The driver integrated circuit includes an intermediate amplifier unit, which outputs a third analog electrical signal that indicates the data, and intermediate routing circuitry, which routes the first analog electrical signal to the intermediate amplifier unit and the third analog electrical signal to the transceiver integrated circuit during reception and routes the second analog electrical signal to the intermediate amplifier unit and the third analog electrical to the antenna integrated circuit during transmission.

A wireless electronic device may include switching circuits that perform time division duplexing by toggling between a first configuration in which radio-frequency signals received from antennas are routed to the transceivers and a second configuration in which the antennas are coupled to antenna switching circuitry. The antenna switching circuitry may receive radio-frequency transmission signals from the transceivers and route the transmission signals to a selected one of the antennas. The antenna switching circuitry may be controlled by control circuitry such as baseband circuitry and/or storage and processing circuitry on the device. The antenna switching circuitry may be controlled to accommodate antenna transmit diversity without affecting reception of radio-frequency signals, because the switching circuits that perform time division duplexing may form signal reception paths that are unaffected by the configuration of the antenna switching circuitry.

System and methods for performing antenna transmit diversity

A device under test (DUT) may be tested using a radio-frequency test station. The DUT may include at least one antenna, wireless communications circuitry associated with the antenna, and other peripheral components such as a camera module, a display module, and audio circuitry. The test station may include a shielded enclosure in which the DUT is placed during testing. The DUT need not be electrically wired to any test equipment. The DUT may be configured to operate in self test mode. The DUT may be configured to obtain baseline noise floor measurements while all the peripheral components are deactivated and may be configured to obtain elevated noise floor measurements while selectively activating desired subsets of the peripheral components. The difference between the elevated and baseline noise floor measurements may be computed to determine whether at least some of the peripheral components negatively impact the antenna performance by an excessive amount.

Methods for testing wireless electronic devices using automatic self-test mode

A wireless electronic device may be used to communicate using multiple wireless standards in adjacent frequency bands. The wireless standards may include Wi-Fi&#xae; and cellular standards such as Long Term Evolution (LTE). The wireless electronic device may be provided with wireless communications circuitry that handles Wi-Fi&#xae; and cellular signals in adjacent frequency bands such as the Wi-Fi&#xae; 2.4 GHz frequency band and LTE bands 38 and 40. The wireless communications circuitry may include a triplexer interposed between transceiver circuitry and an antenna. The triplexer may be used to handle radio-frequency signals in adjacent frequency bands by separating the radio-frequency signals into signals associated with each frequency band. The triplexer may include filters that each pass signals in a respective one of the frequency bands between the transceiver circuitry and the antenna.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Qishan Yu