Apple Inc.

Yiren Wang

Mattia Pascolini

Hao Xu

Yijun Zhou

Jennifer M Edwards

Erik G De Jong

Ming-Ju Tsai

Qingxiang Li

Siwen Yong

Hongfei Hu

Yuehui Ouyang

Miroslav Samardzija

Yuancheng Xu

Robert W Schlub

Ruben Caballero

Yuan Tao

Enrique Ayala Vazquez

Liang Han

Joseph Hakim

Han Wang

Nanbo Jin

Erdinc Irci

Matthew A Mow

Ming Chen

Jingni Zhong

Haozhan Tian

Carlo Di Nallo

Thomas E Biedka

Victor C Lee

James G Judkins

Tiejun Yu

Ana Papio Toda

Nikolaj P Kammersgaard

Daisong Zhang

Tang Yew Tan

Jiang Zhu

Jayesh Nath

Victor W Lee

Xue Yang

Zheyu Wang

Eric W Bates

Peter A Dvorak

Ronald Lam

Seyed Mohammad Amjadi

Sidharath Jain

Nikolaj Peter Iversen Kammersgaard

Linqiang Zou

Jack R Lanzi

Erik G Dejong

An electronic device may be provided with a liquid crystal polymer (LCP) printed circuit having conductive trace and a hole. A conductive flange may be soldered to the conductive trace and may extend into the hole. The end of the conductive flange may laterally surround a central opening within the hole. A conductive contact may be inserted into the central opening. Solder may be deposited over the conductive flange and in the central opening. The solder may couple the conductive contact to the conductive flange and thus the conductive trace. This may ensure a robust mechanical and electrical connection between the conductive contact and the conductive trace on the printed circuit despite the printed circuit being formed from LCP, which may not support copper-plated through vias for coupling to the conductive contact.

Electronic device having conductive contact soldered to printed circuit

An electronic device may have a display. A display cover layer and a transparent inner display member may overlap a display pixel layer. The display pixel layer may have an array of display pixels for displaying images for a user. A touch sensor layer may be interposed between the display pixel layer and the transparent display member. A ferromagnetic shielding layer may be mounted below the display pixel layer. A flexible printed circuit containing coils of metal signal lines that form a near-field communications loop antenna may be interposed between the ferromagnetic shielding layer and the display pixel layer. A non-near-field antenna such as an inverted-F antenna may have a resonating element mounted on an inner surface of the display cover layer. The resonating element may be interposed between the transparent display member and the display cover layer.

Electronic device with near-field antenna operating through display

An electronic device may be provided with peripheral conductive housing structures having first and second segments. A flexible printed circuit may have a first tail that extends along the first and second segments and a second tail that extends along the first segment. A conductive trace on the first tail may be coupled to an antenna feed terminal on the second segment. A conductive trace on the second tail may couple the conductive trace on the first tail to the first segment. A tuner and filters may be disposed on the flexible printed circuit and may be coupled to the conductive traces. The conductive trace on the second tail may have a tapered width. An antenna in the device may have a resonating element that includes both the first and second segments, thereby allowing the antenna to exhibit a wide bandwidth from 1.1-5 GHz.

Wideband antenna structures in corner of electronic device

An electronic device may be provided with peripheral conductive housing structures having a first segment and a second segment. First and second antenna feeds may be coupled between the first segment and the ground structures. The first feed may convey signals in a first band and the second feed may convey signals in a second band. The first segment may be near-field coupled to a slot between the second segment and the ground structures. A first tuner may be coupled between the second segment and the ground structures and may adjust a resonance of the first segment in the first and second bands. A second tuner coupled to the first feed may perform impedance matching in the first band and aperture tuning in the second band. A third tuner coupled to the second feed may perform impedance matching in the second band and aperture tuning in the first band.

Electronic device with multi-feed antenna structures

A radio frequency device has a multifunctional tuner that stores measurements of reflection coefficient parameter in a register. The radio frequency device also has a transceiver that has a transmitter. The transceiver may detect a transmitter signal from the transmitter to an antenna in an initial tuning state and then determine whether the transmitter signal is stable. In response to the transmitter signal being stable, the transceiver may measuring the reflection coefficient parameters at the multifunctional tuner. Furthermore, the radio frequency device has a baseband controller that has a memory to store instructions and a processor to execute the instructions. The instructions cause the processor to determine an antenna impedance based on the reflection coefficient parameters, and in response to determining that the antenna impedance is greater than or less than a threshold antenna impedance, iteratively tune the antenna using the multifunctional tuner.

Adaptive antenna tuning system

An electronic device may be provided with peripheral conductive housing structures having first and second segments. The device may include an antenna having a resonating arm formed from the first segment, an antenna ground, and a tuning element. The tuning element may have first, second, and third terminals. The first terminal may be coupled to the second segment. The antenna may have a switchable loop path that includes a first path from the second terminal to the first segment, a second path from first segment to a first point on the antenna ground, a portion of the antenna ground from the first point to a second point, and a third path from the second point to the third terminal. The tuning element may selectively activate the switchable loop path to boost performance of the antenna in a frequency band between 3300 MHz and 5000 MHz when needed.

Electronic device with switchable antenna loop path

An electronic device may be provided with wireless circuitry and a housing with upper and lower ends. The lower end may include first and second open slot antennas that are directly fed by respective feeds and that radiate in a cellular ultra-high band. The lower end may also include first and second inverted-F antennas. The upper end may include third and fourth inverted-F antennas. The first inverted-F antenna may have a first feed that conveys currents below 2700 MHz and a second feed that conveys antenna currents in the cellular ultra-high band, a wireless local area network band, and/or ultra-wideband frequency bands. If desired, the upper end may include a third open slot antenna that is directly fed by a corresponding antenna feed and that radiates in the cellular ultra-high band and/or in the ultra-wideband frequency bands.

Wireless devices having antennas for covering multiple frequency bands

An electronic device may be provided with wireless circuitry and control circuitry. The wireless circuitry may include multiple antennas and transceiver circuitry. An antenna in the electronic device may have an inverted-F antenna resonating element formed from portions of a peripheral conductive electronic device housing structure and may have an antenna ground that is separated from the antenna resonating element by a gap. The antenna ground for the antenna may include a conductive frame for the display. The conductive frame may have a first portion that is separated from the antenna resonating element arm by a first distance and a second portion that is separated from the antenna resonating element arm by a second distance that is less than the first distance. The second portion may be configured to form a distributed impedance matching capacitance with the antenna resonating element arm.

Electronic device antennas including conductive display structures

A device with near-field communications (NFC) capabilities is provided. A housing may include first and second segments and a support plate separated from the segments by a slot. A first inductor may be coupled between the first segment and the plate. A second inductor may be coupled between the second segment and the plate. A transceiver may have a first signal terminal coupled to the first segment over a first path and a second signal terminal coupled to the second segment over a second path. The transceiver may convey differential signals in an NFC band over a loop path for an NFC antenna that includes the first conductive path, the first segment, the first inductor, a portion of the plate between the first and second inductors, the second inductor, the second segment, and the second conductive path. This may optimize wireless performance and volume for the NFC antenna.

Electronic devices having differential-fed near-field communications antennas

An electronic device may be provided with wireless circuitry and control circuitry. The wireless circuitry may include multiple antennas and transceiver circuitry. An antenna in the electronic device may have an inverted-F antenna resonating element formed from portions of a peripheral conductive electronic device housing structure and may have an antenna ground that is separated from the antenna resonating element by a gap. A split return path may bridge the gap. The split return path may be coupled between a first point on the inverted-F antenna resonating element arm and second and third points on the antenna ground. The split return path may include a first inductor coupled between the first and second points and a second inductor coupled between the first and third points. The first and second inductors may be adjustable.

Electronic device antennas having split return paths

Antenna structures at a given end of an electronic device may include antenna structures that are shared between multiple antennas. The device may include an antenna with an inverted-F antenna resonating element formed from portions of a peripheral conductive electronic device housing structure and may have an antenna ground that is separated from the antenna resonating element by a gap. A short circuit path may bridge the gap. The short circuit path may be a split return path coupled between a first point on the inverted-F antenna resonating element arm and second and third points on the antenna ground. The electronic device may include an additional antenna that includes the antenna ground and metal traces that form an antenna resonating element arm. The antenna resonating element arm of the additional antenna may be parasitically coupled to the inverted-F antenna resonating element and a portion of the split return path.

Electronic devices having shared antenna structures and split return paths

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Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Yiren Wang