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EP-4243202-B1 - SEPARABLE ANTENNA AND ELECTRONIC DEVICE COMPRISING SAME

EP4243202B1EP 4243202 B1EP4243202 B1EP 4243202B1EP-4243202-B1

Inventors

  • PARK, SANGHOON
  • BAEK, KWANGHYUN
  • LEE, JUNESEOK
  • HA, Dohyuk
  • PARK, JUNGHO
  • LEE, Youngju
  • LEE, JUNGYUB
  • HEO, Jinsu

Dates

Publication Date
20260506
Application Date
20220204

Claims (15)

  1. An antenna module comprising: a first flexible printed circuit board, FPCB (310), including a first antenna; a second FPCB (330) including a dielectric and a via hole formed in the dielectric, wherein a conductive material is plated in the via hole; a printed circuit board, PCB, (360) on which a radio frequency integrated circuit, RFIC, is disposed; a support member (320) disposed on the second FPCB (330) for supporting the first FPCB; and an adhesive material (340) for coupling the second FPCB and the PCB, wherein the second FPCB includes a first metal layer (335) disposed on a first face of the dielectric, and a second metal layer disposed on a second face of the dielectric, wherein the first metal layer and the second metal layer are electrically connected through the via hole plated with the conductive material, wherein the PCB includes a coupling pad (375) electrically connected with the RFIC, and wherein a signal from the RFIC is transmitted to the first metal layer through a coupling connection between the coupling pad and second metal layer.
  2. The antenna module of claim 1, wherein the dielectric is a polyimide, PI, film configured as one layer, wherein a first face of the PI film is attached to the first metal layer via a first adhesive material, and wherein a second face opposite to the first face of the PI film is attached to the second metal layer via a second adhesive material.
  3. The antenna module of claim 1, wherein the second metal layer is a coupling pad aligned with the coupling pad of the PCB.
  4. The antenna module of claim 3, wherein a distance between the second metal layer and the coupling pad of the PCB depends on thickness of the adhesive material.
  5. The antenna module of claim 1, wherein the dielectric comprises a first polyimide, PI, film and a second PI film, wherein a first face of the first PI film is attached to the first metal layer via a first adhesive material, wherein a second face of the first PI film opposite to the first face of the first PI film is attached to a first face of the second PI film via a second adhesive material, and wherein a second face of the second PI film opposite to the first face of the second PI film is attached to the second metal layer via a third adhesive material.
  6. The antenna module of claim 1, wherein the adhesive material comprises a bonding sheet or adhesive tape.
  7. The antenna module of claim 1, wherein the second metal layer comprises flexible copper clad laminate, FCCL.
  8. The antenna module of claim 1, wherein an inner space of the via hole is filled with a portion of the adhesive material.
  9. The antenna module of claim 1, wherein one or more metal structures configured to prevent interference between one antenna and another antenna among a plurality of antennas are disposed on the first FPCB.
  10. The antenna module of claim 1, wherein the first FPCB comprises one or more air vent holes and one or more first fiducial marks, wherein the PCB comprises one or more second fiducial marks, and wherein positions of the one or more second fiducial marks correspond to positions of the one or more first fiducial marks.
  11. The antenna module of claim 10, further comprising: a metal frame configured to surround the first FPCB.
  12. An electronic device comprising: at least one processor; and a plurality of antenna modules, wherein each of the plurality of antenna modules includes an antenna module of claim 1.
  13. The electronic device of claim 12, wherein the dielectric is a polyimide, PI, film configured as one layer, wherein a first face of the PI film is attached to the first metal layer via a first adhesive material, and wherein a second face opposite to the first face of the PI film is attached to the second metal layer via a second adhesive material.
  14. The electronic device of claim 12, wherein the second metal layer is a coupling pad aligned with the coupling pad of the PCB.
  15. The electronic device of claim 14, wherein a distance between the second metal layer and the coupling pad of the PCB depends on thickness of the adhesive material.

Description

[Technical Field] The disclosure relates generally to a wireless communication system and, more particularly, to a separable antenna and an electronic device including the same in a wireless communication system. [Background Art] To meet the demand for wireless data traffic having increased since deployment of 4th generation (4G) communication systems, efforts have been made to develop an improved 5th generation (5G) or pre-5G communication system. Therefore, the 5G or pre-5G communication system is also called a "beyond 4G network" communication system or a "post long term evolution (post LTE)" system. The 5G communication system is considered to be implemented in ultrahigh frequency (mmWave) bands (e.g., 60GHz bands) so as to accomplish higher data rates. To decrease propagation loss of the radio waves and increase the transmission distance in the ultrahigh frequency bands, beamforming, massive multiple-input multiple-output (massive MIMO), full dimensional MIMO (FD-MIMO), array antenna, analog beam forming, large scale antenna techniques are discussed in 5G communication systems. In addition, in 5G communication systems, development for system network improvement is under way based on advanced small cells, cloud radio access networks (cloud RANs), ultra-dense networks, device-to-device (D2D) communication, wireless backhaul, moving network, cooperative communication, coordinated multi-points (CoMP), reception-end interference cancellation and the like. In the 5G system, hybrid FSK and QAM modulation (FQAM) and sliding window superposition coding (SWSC) as an advanced coding modulation (ACM), and filter bank multi carrier (FBMC), non-orthogonal multiple access(NOMA), and sparse code multiple access (SCMA) as an advanced access technology have also been developed. There has been development of products equipped with multiple antennas in order to improve communication performance, and it is expected that, by utilizing massive MIMO technology, equipment having far more antennas will be used gradually. As communication devices has more antenna elements, there is an increasing demand for a separable antenna structure for efficiently designing antenna equipment. US 20160172761 A1 discloses a stack structure of an antenna package, where the ground plane provides an antenna ground plane for the planar antennas formed on the first substrate, the fourth metallization layer comprises a plurality of contact pads that serve to connect the antenna package to the RFIC chip, the via hole V4 is formed penetrating the first substrate, and the capacitively coupled ground plane which is configured to provide a ground connection for the grounded parasitic elements. US 2020058998 A1 discloses a patch antenna arrangement including four patch antennas, on a first surface of the first substrate a patch antenna is realized, on a fourth surface of the second substrate, conductive tracks for mounting circuitry are placed, and one side of an SMD component is soldered with a solder bump to a first conductive track attached on the fourth surface, the substrates may even be attached together by a suitable adhesive disposed between the second surface and the third surface, the capacitive coupling occurs primarily between the pad and the patch antenna. US2014145883 A1 discloses a package structure with integrated antennas. [Disclosure of Invention] [Technical Problem] Based on the above discussion, the disclosure provides an electronic device having a separable antenna structure and a method for manufacturing the same. In addition, the disclosure provides a structure of a flexible printed circuit board (FPCB) and a device including the same, in order to design an electronic device having a separable antenna structure, in a wireless communication system. In addition, the disclosure provides an adhesive member between an FPCB and a printed circuit board (PCB) and a device including the same, in order to implement a separable antenna, in a wireless communication system. In addition, the disclosure provides a structure for coupling connection between an FPCB and a printed circuit board (PCB) and a device including the same, in order to implement a separable antenna, in a wireless communication system. [Solution to Problem] In accordance with embodiments of the disclosure, an antenna module is provided as defined by the appended set of claims. In accordance with embodiments of the disclosure, an electronic device is provided as defined by the appended set of claims. [Advantageous Effects of Invention] A separable antenna structure and a device including the same, according to various embodiments of the disclosure, have a flexible printed circuit board (FPCB) for an antenna, which is designed in view of the size of a via, the thickness of plating, the number of times of plating, or the disposition between coupling structures, thereby providing robustness against pressure and facilitating mass production. In addition, a separable antenna structu