Nowadays, navigation antennas are more and more widely used in our lives, such as mobile phones, electronic watches, cars, navigation devices, etc., and for different applications, navigation antennas are also divided into many types, such as built-in antennas, GPS antennas, external antennas, timing antennas, etc.; Recently, some friends asked what the difference is between PCB antennas and ceramic antennas. Many people don’t know. Let me tell you:

Difference 1: Different definitions

Ceramic antennas use GPS satellites to achieve navigation positioning, and the main task of the user’s receiver is to extract pseudo-random noise codes and data codes from satellite signals to further calculate the position, speed and time (PVT) of the receiver carrier and other navigation information. It can be divided into block ceramic antennas and multilayer ceramic antennas.

PCB antenna refers to the part on the PCB used for wireless reception and transmission, which is generally set on the Bluetooth or wireless transmission module. Its routing generally has to have an air zone to prevent the ground from scattering the signal and affecting the reception effect; make the omnidirectional antenna directional.

Difference 2: Different characteristics

In terms of dielectric constant, ceramic antennas are higher than PCB antennas, so using ceramic antennas can effectively reduce the size of the antenna. In terms of dielectric loss, ceramic dielectrics also have less dielectric loss than PCB circuit boards, so they are very suitable for use in low-power Bluetooth modules. The size of ceramic antennas is generally equivalent to 1210 packages, and the effect is stronger than on-board antennas. When designing PCB antennas, the surrounding area only needs to be clear, and no metal objects can be placed. Metal components must be reliably grounded, and special attention should be paid to not coating copper.