Electrical – PCB layout for chip antenna

antennagpspcbpcb-design

I recently made my first PCB. I ordered it from China and soldered it up on my homemade oven, and it's working awesome.

I've already started a list for rev 2. There is one issue that I'm hoping I can get some experienced advice on.

Module from uputronics My board

Here are pictures of my board, and a GPS module from Uputronics. I've done a lot of testing, and the module from uputronics is consistently better. It locks in about half the time, it picks up more satellites, and the satellites both modules pick up, the uputronics gets about 10 dB better signal.

Is there any tips or guidance I can get for how to make my GPS antenna layout better? 10 dB seems like a lot, is there some important rule that I'm overlooking? Any help I can get so I can make rev 2 of my board as good as this module would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Best Answer

You are not tuning the antenne. Since you have cut away the PCB around the antenne, it makes no sence to compare the two designs. You need to implement some kind of tuning, using a VNA to analyse the antenne and bring its impedance to match 50 ohm.

This whitepaper from Nordic describes it in detail. http://infocenter.nordicsemi.com/pdf/nwp_017.pdf