> I am doing a lot of PCB trace antenna design lately, and I am seeing anot=
her
> occurence of something that I had seen before, where a given antenna
> design that should be workable, simply won't tune in a given design.
>=20
> Previously all I had to address this was renting some time on a VNA and
> hacking a physical prototype.
>=20
> Today I am working with XFdtd simulating the entire PCB, plus all the
> surrounding materials. That makes the tuning process one of time on a GPU
> instead of rental lab time and X-acto knives.
>=20
> It seems that there is some other structure on the PCB that is resonating
> in some way that interferes with the antenna.   I've done some
> investigation with stitching vias and definitely things are a lot more st=
able
> with those in place, but it's not affecting the main problem that I am se=
eing.
>=20
> I am wondering if others have hit this, and if so what they did to isolat=
e and
> get rid of the problem?

What happens if you 'mask' other bits of the PCB with the equivalent of a m=
etal can - rather like gets fitted to actual modules.=20

By having a small 'grounded can' that gets a simulated decent ground connec=
tion to mask an area can you effectively mask that area from the simulation=
?


--=20
Scanned by iCritical.

--=20
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