Co-designed Millimeter-wave and Microwave Antennas for 5G and B5G Handsets

An innovative, simple, practical, low-cost, space-saving co-design of millimeter-wave and microwave antennas for handsets of 5G and beyond 5G (B5G) is proposed. The co-design is based on a metal-frame-based 5G FR1 microwave (mcw) and a thin FPC-based 5G FR2 millimeter-wave (mmw) antenna module. Through the co-designed antennas, the higher utilization of internal space and PCB areas in smartphone, smaller clearance gaps, and better mcw antenna performance can be effectively achieved. Besides, the presented co-designed mcw and mmw antennas can cover multiple 3GPP 5G bands (such as n7, n12, n20, n28, n261, etc.) and the 2.4-GHz band for wireless local area networks (WLANs) to provide a promising and compelling antenna total solution for smartphones. As a result, the proposed antenna co-design can greatly upgrade handset competitiveness.