2.4GHz PCB antenna design

Check out Microchip's application notes for their 2.4GHz ZigBee transceiver, the MRF24J40. They have excellent documentation about PCB antenna. Also, look at Chipcon (now TI) cc2024 app notes. They have great documentation also, and I believe they even provide gerber files.

-Goldscott

It's actually cc2420, sorry.

-Goldscott

Thanks, I'll have a look.

Mark.

Thanks for the responses. For others looking for some data I found this very useful document:

Mark.

I agree with the previous posters, I found a lot of the information provided by Microchip and Chipcon very handy. After playing around (and the calculations provided by chipcon and microchip confirm), I found that a wider track width makes a big difference. It raises the Rloss which in turn increases the radiation efficiency.

Regards

AJ

Thanks for that, I'll bear that in mind when I prototype it! As an aside, what's the easiest way to test the gain of an antenna (without the use of fancy RF test equimpent)? Is just reading the reported receiving signal strength of a module at varies distances away from it a representative test, e.g. are they accurate enough for that purpose?

Mark.

Only if you have a large, open field (large enough to get out into the far zone of the antenna... going, say, 10 wavelengths out for measurements should be good). You'll get pretty meaningless results if you conduct your test in, e.g., a home or office building.

Actually, I found this Googling:

Looks interesting...