Which suggested layout is the current suggestion?

RE: Which suggested layout is the current suggestion?

Simonr — Wed, 18 Mar 2020 09:28:13 GMT

Hi Marco

The Thingy is special because its design has such a small ground plane, which causes the bandwidth of the antenna to be too low to cover the whole band. The switches are there to make it possible to re-tune the antenna. If you need this depends heavily on how many bands you need to cover (the Thingy:91 is usable worldwide), how large of a ground plane your design has, and what kind of an antenna you're using.

Best regards,

Simon

RE: Which suggested layout is the current suggestion?

mdm — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 17:01:42 GMT

Hi, currently we are in the design phase of a nRF9160 based module.

I've seen a strong differences between the Thingy (v.1.0.1) antenna matching schematic than the one of DK (v.10.2)
I suppose that Nordic designers follow a more strict regulatory compliance in Thingy than in DK.
By the way, using two Quorvo QM12038 muxes and several passive matching nets is quite costly and, much more important, space consuming.

Therefore it is important for us to understand if, in your opinion, the simple single matching network of DK is sufficient to pass the LTE certification for Europe.

If more is need, could you kindly suggest if Nordic itself or some known expert could support us in the antenna matching design?
Although we've good knowledge in design, LTE wide band fragmentation sound quite challenging and a second opinion could help us to have more confidence.

BR, Marco

RE: Which suggested layout is the current suggestion?

Simonr — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 08:45:39 GMT

The recommended layout at the time is version 0.10.2 Layout and BOM resources. Any future updates to the recommended layout and BOM revisions will be found on the nRF9160 DK download pages.

Best regards,

Simon