March 2011

Doc ID 018585 Rev 1

1/28

AN3359

Application note

Low cost PCB antenna for 2.4GHz radio:

Meander design

1

Introduction

This application note is dedicated to the STM32W108 product family from

STMicroelectronics.

One of the main reasons to use a PCB antenna is the reduced overall cost of the radio

module. Well designed and implemented PCB-printed antennas have a similar performance

to the SMD ceramic equivalence. In general, the footprint for a ceramic SMD antenna is

smaller than that for a PCB-printed variant. For a PCB-printed antenna solution, the

increased size of the PCB in relation to space required for the antenna means that the radio

module is larger cost of the PCB increased. The increased cost of the PCB is smaller and

less expensive than a SMD ceramic antenna.

The STM32-RFCKIT RF control kit is based on an STM32W108xx RF microcontroller. It

implements a PCB-printed antenna to perform RF communications.

www.st.com