LTE offers consumers the promise of faster speeds and better coverage. Device manufacturers are challenged to meet these promises due to the number of bands required for global operation and the shrinking space available for the antenna.

Ethertronics’ EtherSmart LTE 1.0™ Phone Adaptive Antenna Solution uses Active Impedance Matching techniques to resolve a number of issues in mobile devices. Active Impedance Matching techniques can reduce the antenna’s physical volume by 50 percent without compromising performance. This significant size reduction is critical, especially as additional antennas are integrated into the device and the battery size continues to grow. Alternatively, these techniques can be used to cover a wider bandwidth in the same antenna volume. Active Impedance Matching also speeds up time-to-market, since it allows more degrees of freedom in the antenna structure design phase. Unlike “passive” antennas that require tuning with each design iteration process, active antennas can dynamically re-tune themselves when changes are made to the device. This is important for OEMs especially as they battle it out to come to market with new devices ahead of their competition.

Ethertronics’ EtherBook 1.0™ leverages Active Band Switching techniques and is the only antenna available that can be integrated inside of a notebook. Band switching meets LTE’s multiple band challenge in that it is able to cover more than 13 bands for LTE global roaming. Since active band switching technology can handle significant spreads in bands, from the low 700 MHz U.S. bands to 2.7 GHz, this ability simultaneously allows both voice and data usage at the same time, all without compromising performance for the user. This is pertinent for carriers needing to harvest bands or make the most of any spectrum they can get their hands on. Band switching is also capable of bringing the smallest physical volume antenna systems to fit in the thinnest devices for consumers.

Different active technologies and techniques can be used as standalones or as complements to one another to achieve even better results.

Ethertronics continues to innovate active antenna systems to meet today’s and tomorrow’s wireless designs.