Copying the PCA10028 antenna design

[Nikolaj]

Hi,

Is it possible for me to completely copy the antenna design from PCA10028 unto my custom board? I don't need a very long range, but I need to make a design fairly quickly.

My problem is that I'm not going to add SWF connector so I don't know how to connect the antenna feed to the actual antenna.

My design:

Your design:

I've copied the component placement from your design, and I'm making sure to make a strong ground.

I'm assuming that I need to use 1.6mm PCB as well.

EDIT:

I connected the antenna to the antenna feed, and added the ground-plane (on both sides) Do you think this will suffice?

I wasn't sure whether I should completely connect the antenna or only slightly, so I did something in between (is that good?).

[Hung Bui]

@Nikolaj: Just connect them normally as you almost did. We used 1.6mm PCB. You should also copy the ground layout we have. C15 can be used to tune the antenna. Tuning guide is showed here.

[Nikolaj]

BTW, ignore the error (it's because I copy-pasted the antenna from the PCA10028 and I haven't changed the net name yet)

[Hung Bui]

@Nikolaj: Just connect them completely. Ground plane around the matching network should be cut off, please refer to the clearance we have in the PCA10028. If you plan to tune the antenna, you should make the length of the antenna longer than what we have in the PCA10028 (about 30%) then you can gradually reduce the length later on to achieve the best performance. Instruction is in the document I pointed to in my answer.