A compact LTCC Bluetooth system module with an integrated antenna

✍ Scribed by Lap K. Yeung; Jie Wang; Yong Huang; Shu-Chuen Lee; Ke-Li Wu

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 309 KB
• Volume: 16
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1096-4290
• DOI: 10.1002/mmce.20147

✦ Synopsis

In this article, a system-on-package (SoP) approach for Bluetooth system module applications using low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) technology is presented. The developed LTCC integrated substrate for our Bluetooth module application is overall 12 ؋ 12 ؋ 1 mm 3 in size, with integration of two originally proposed components, a balanced-to-unbalanced bandpass filter and a folded meander-line inverted-F antenna, as well as other passive circuitries. The embedded balanced-to-unbalanced filter, which is derived from the basic center-tapped transformer circuit, works simultaneously as a balun and a bandpass filter, thus leading to a significant amount of size reduction for the overall module. Likewise, comparing to the usual quarter-wavelength inverted-F antennas, our proposed antenna is only one-tenth of a wavelength in length-but no sacrificing of antenna efficiency. Consequently, couplings among different functional blocks of this highly integrated module are crucial to its performance and the resulting effects are discussed. A fully functional prototype is successfully fabricated and tested, demonstrating a promising solution for Bluetooth applications.