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A High-Pass Antenna Interference Cancellation Chip for Mutual Coupling

Reduction of Antennas in Contiguous Frequency Bands

Article  in  IEEE Access · July 2018

DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2018.2853709

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Date of publication xxxx 00, 0000, date of current version xxxx 00, 0000.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/ACCESS.2018.Doi Number

A High-Pass Antenna Interference Cancellation

Chip for Mutual Coupling Reduction of
Antennas in Contiguous Frequency Bands
1 1 1
Luyu Zhao , Member, IEEE, Feng Liu , Student Member, IEEE, Xiumei Shen ,
1 1 2,3
Guodong Jing , Yuanming Cai , Member, IEEE and Yingsong Li , Member, IEEE
1
Key Laboratory of Antennas and Microwave Technologies, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China
2
College of Information Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China
3
Key Laboratory of Microwave Remote Sensing, National Space Science Center, CAS, Beijing 100190, China
Corresponding author: Yingsong Li (e-mail: liyingsong@ieee.org).
This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 61701366, the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation under Grant
2016M602769, National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFE0111100), Key Research and Development Program of Heilongjiang
(GX17A016), the Science and Technology Innovative Talents Foundation of Harbin (2016RAXXJ044), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the
Central Universities (HEUCFM180806).

ABSTRACT In this paper, an Antenna Interference Cancellation Chip (AICC) with high-pass response is
proposed to mitigate the mutual coupling of two antennas resonating in contiguous frequency bands. Using
the most up-to-date LTCC technology, the chip only occupies a compact volume of 1.6×0.8×0.6 mm3. Two
external tuning capacitors and two shunt inductors together with the LTCC AICC device which are in shunt
with two coupled antennas, are able to improve the antenna isolation near band-edge by more than 15 dB
without sacrificing antenna performance in its useful resonating bands. The high-pass property of the AICC
device prevent the decoupling design near 2.4GHz affecting the successful operation of GPS at 1.575 GHz.
The superiority of the proposed method is verified with active measurement of a Mi-Fi (mobile Wi-Fi)
device in Wi-Fi hotspot mode using the AICC device. The proposed AICC device and corresponding
decoupling method with the device can find plenty of applications in LTE and future 5G wireless platforms.

INDEX TERMS Antenna array mutual coupling, decoupling network, interference suppression, in-device
coexistence (IDC), high-pass filter.

I. INTRODUCTION concerning the incumbent LTE systems and other

For the past ten years, our society has witnessed an
amazing tendency that the mobile terminal has inevitably
become a versatile device that are equipped with long-term-
evolution (LTE), Wi-Fi, Global Navigation Satellite System
(GNSS), Near Field Communication (NFC) and many other
wireless protocols and systems. The integration of these
systems into one physical platform brings great
convenience to our life. However, in the meantime, it put us
in a predicament that it is becoming increasingly difficult to
design and implement antennas for these wireless systems
in a more and more limited space. Moreover, the crowded
frequency spectrum has also made things even worse. One
typical example would be the contiguous frequency bands
of the LTE Band-40 and the 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi band, where no
guard band is reserved as shown in Fig. 1 [1].
As the advance of 5-th generation (5G) wireless
communication systems, the in-device coexistence issue
developing systems will be more and more severe in the
“long term”. Antennas of these systems are resonating at
adjacent frequencies or even the same frequency band. As a
result, the coexistence interferences of these radio
transceivers and antennas becomes a very serious problem,
especially when metal frame mobile terminals are more and
more popular and when MIMO technologies demand even
more antennas for one wireless system.
The Wi-Fi Hotspot operation mode of a mobile terminal,
either for a smart phone, a Mobile Wi-Fi (Mi-Fi) or a USB
data card dongle, would be a good illustration of the
abovementioned coexistence interference issue. As shown
in Fig. 2, in Wi-Fi hotspot mode, the Wi-Fi transmitter
emits at around 15 dBm level, while a TD-LTE Band-40
receiver is in its receiving mode whose sensitivity is around
-85 dBm level. Conventional antenna design can only
provide at most 15 dB isolation between the Wi-Fi antenna

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and the LTE Band-40 antenna. Furthermore, today’s off- either the performance of the first few channels of Wi-Fi
the-shelf SAW (surface acoustic wave) or BAW (bulk band [5] or the performance of the last few channels of LTE
acoustic wave) even FBAR (film bulk acoustic resonator) band-40 [6-7].
filters are only able to produce at most out-of-band Another category of solutions aims to reduce antenna
rejection of 55~60 dB. The out-of-band emission of Wi-Fi mutual couplings (shorted as antenna decoupling) [8]-[26].
signal is still far beyond the LTE receiver sensitivity, which However, most of them are only proved to be effective for
will produce interference for the adjacent LTE receiver that mutual interfering antennas resonating at exactly the same
must be taken care of. band. Furthermore, it is well-known that almost all of the
TD-LTE Band 40 (B40) WiFi Channels (Ch) antennas in practical applications operate at multiple
Unit: MHz Unit: MHz
Ch13
frequency bands, for instance, the WBG (Wi-Fi-Bluetooth-
2461-2483
Ch12
2456-2478
GPS) antenna occupies the 1.575GHz, 2,4GHz bands; the
Ch11
2451-2473
Ch10
LTE and its diversity antennas must cover 690 MHz~960
2446-2468
EARFCN: 38750
2310
Ch9
2441-2463
MHz bands, 1.7 GHz~2.7 GHz and even 3.3 GHz ~3.7GHz
EARFCN: 38850 Ch8
2320
EARFCN: 38950 Ch7
2436-2458
bands for 5G systems. For most of the antenna decoupling
2330 2431-2453
EARFCN: 39050
2340
Ch6
2426-2448
solutions, only single band operation is assured, while the
EARFCN: 39150 Ch5
2350
EARFCN: 39250 Ch4
2421-2443
performance of the antennas at other operating frequency
2360 2416-2438
EARFCN: 39350
2370
Ch3
2411-2433
bands after antenna decoupling are untended, resulting in
EARFCN: 39450 Ch2
2380
EARFCN: 39550
2406-2428
Ch1
mismatch and efficiency loss.
2390 2401-2423
0 The proposed method in this paper for interference
fL f0 fH Frequency
suppression of contiguous frequency bands possesses the
Fig. 1. Mutually interfered Channels of the LTE band-40 and the 2.4GHz following unique features:
Wi-Fi band. (EARFCN: E-UTRA Absolute Radio Frequency Channel 1) The high-pass frequency selectivity makes the
Number) proposed AICC effective at around 2.3~2.5 GHz while it
Power Level
generates little interference on the operation bands below
Tx Signal Level
Pt
of Transceiver A
2.1 GHz.
Filter Rejection
(Typ. 55 ~ 60 dB)
Bandpass Filter 2) It uses the up-to-date Low Temperature Co-fired
Wi-Fi Response
Ceramic (LTCC) process to ensure a good product yield
and very compact size.
Po Antenna Isolation
(Typ. 15 dB)
3) It has external tuning mechanism to fine tune the
Pi High-pass extent of mutual coupling reduction as well as the antenna
AICC
Interference ANT B
ANT A Isolation Improved matching.
to Tranceiver B Rx Signal of by High-pass AICC
Transceiver B (Typ. 15 ~ 25 dB)
The remaining part of the paper is organized as the
Pr
LTE
following: Section II illustrates the design procedure using
Pn Noise floor
Band 40
SNR AICC with a practical example. Performance evaluation
Pa including active measurements of antennas with an AICC
Coexistence of Frequency
A and B Transceiver Transceiver in a commercially available Mi-Fi product is presented in
B A
Section III. Section IV gives the conclusions.
Fig. 2. The application of the proposed high-pass AICC for reducing
coexistence interference from transmitter A to receiver B working in II. DESIGN PROCEDURE ILLUSTRATED BY AN
contiguous frequency bands. EXAMPLE
Recently, both the industry and the academia strive to Unlike conventional antenna decoupling problems that
find a proper solution for the above-mentioned problem. two antennas are resonating at the same frequency band or
Their endeavors mainly fall into the following three even symmetrical in dimension, for antennas working in
categories: base band solution, active/passive filter solution contiguous frequency bands, the antennas could be distinct
and antenna decoupling solution. Coordinating between two from one another in shape and other characteristics. With
transceivers with adjacent operation frequency bands and the design theory well-illustrated in [11] and [17], it is easy
avoiding coexistence interference by time division to obtain the decoupling and matching conditions for the
multiplexing is a good choice to deal with the admittance parameters of the two antennas in contiguous
corresponding interferences [2]. An active interference bands:
suppression method, which uses a generated cancellation
signal with the help of complex system architecture and Decoupling Conditions:
algorithm, is proposed in [3]. Interference suppression
filters are used in [4] based on CMOS process. FBAR/SAW  
Re Y21A ( f0 )  0 , (1a)
based filtering solution proposed by Murata and Avago are
also available on the market, but they need to sacrifice

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and

 
j  Im Y21A ( f0 )  Y21C ( f0 )  0 (1b)

Matching Conditions (Suppose Antenna 1 resonating in low

band and Antenna 2 resonating in high band):

 
Re Y11A ( f )  Y0 , f  f0 , f H  , (2a)

 
j  Im Y11A ( f )  Y11C ( f )  0, f  f0 , f H  , (2b) (a)

and

 
Re Y22A ( f )  Y0 , f  f L , f0  , (3a)

 
j  Im Y22A ( f )  Y22C ( f )  0, f  f L , f0  . (3b)

where superscript “A” refers to the parameters related with

(b)
antennas, superscript “C” refers to the parameters of the
AICC.Y0 is the characteristic admittance of the system. As
shown in Fig. 1, f0 is the center frequency of the two
contiguous frequency bands [fL, f0] and [f0, fH], respectively.
The low band in this design begins from fL and ends at f0;
while the high band in this design range from f0 to fH.
To illustrate the detail design procedure of the proposed
AICC decoupling method, a practical example is given in
this section as shown in Fig. 3 (a). Two FPC (Flexible PCB)
antennas are placed on antenna holders constructed by ABS
(Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) substrate. One antenna
resonates at LTE bands including LTE Band-40 from 2.3 (c)
GHz to 2.4 GHz, while the other antenna is WBG (Wi-Fi,
Bluetooth and GPS) antenna enabling dual-band operation
in both 1.575 GHz and 2.4 GHz bands. The antennas with
holders are then installed on PCB board including all
components, chips and shielding. The antennas are fed by
two 50 ohm rigid coaxial cables. It should be noted that
during measurement, the PCB with antennas is also put into
the Mi-Fi case with screen and battery inside to emulate its
real working condition.
The measured scattering parameters of the original
antennas without any AICCs around 2.4 GHz are shown in
Fig. 3 (b) (the curves with hollow markers). It is clear that (d)
Fig. 3. (a) Photo of the Mi-Fi product motherboard with antenna holder,
both Antenna 1 (WBG antenna) and Antenna 2 (LTE antenna) FPC (Flexible PCB) antennas, feeding cables, components and
resonate at their pre-specified frequency bands. However, shielding; (b)The (measured) scattering parameters of the antenna
since the two bands are contiguous, and the two antennas are without and with AICC; (c) The mutual admittance parameters of the
antennas and the designed AICC; and (d) The self-admittance
in close proximity, the isolation between them is no more parameters of the antennas and the designed AICC. (A: Parameters for
than 15 dB. From the budget calculation in the previous Antennas; C: Parameters for the AICC only; D: Parameters for the AICC
section, the isolation is far below the demand. Effective with two external capacitors; M: Parameters for the AICC chip with
decoupling measures must be taken to significantly reduce external capacitors and two shunt inductors.)

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Port 1 Port 2
C2 C2
C C 50 ohm L1 50 ohm
Antenna1 Antenna2
t1 t2 C1
The Antennas
Port 1 Port 2

CM2 (a)
LM2 External External
C01 AICC Module C01 Coupling Coupling

L01 L02 Port 1 Port 2

C01 C2 C2 C01
50 ohm L1 50 ohm
L01 L02
Fig. 4. Schematic diagram of the proposed AICC in shunt with the two C1
coupled antennas with extra matching circuits.

AICC Module
TABLE I
DESIGNED VALUES OF THE COMPONENTS IN FIG. 4 (b)
Components Value Components Value
t1 25 degree C01 2.2 pF -Y12
t2 25 degree CM2 2.2 pF
L01 8.2 nH LM2 4.7 nH L01 Y11+Y12 Y22+Y12 L01
L02 12 nH / /
the mutual coupling between the two antennas at band-edge,
where filter rejection is not high enough yet.
Step1: Extract the mutual admittance of the two antennas
and determine the type of AICC that is needed. -Y12
As shown in Fig 3 (a), before using the vector network
analyzer (Keysight E5080A in this example) to measure the ’+Y12
Y11 ’+Y12
Y22
scattering parameters of the antennas, port extension must
be done using the two rigid cables that are to be soldered
near the feeding points of two antennas. This operation is to
(c)
shift the reference planes to the feeding position to exact Fig. 5. Equivalent network model transformation with the shunt inductor
the scattering parameters with the correct phase, which is L01.
important for successfully transforming the measured S-
according to matching conditions (2b) and (3b) since the
parameters to Y-parameters. The extracted admittance
original antennas are already well matched.
parameters are shown in Fig. 3 (c). To satisfy decoupling
For any realizable passive networks, the slope of self-
condition (1a), two sections of transmission lines with
admittance parameters with respect to frequency (Y11C(f)
electric length of t1 and t2 respectively are connected to the
and Y22C(f)) in this case must always be positive [27]. To
two antennas to transform the mutual admittance of the two
balance the matching performance within the entire band of
antennas, Y21A, to purely imaginary [11], as shown in Fig. 4
interest, it is favorable to place the zero of Y11C(f) and Y22C(f)
(a). After admittance transformation, the remaining
in the center frequency of each desired operation band. To
imaginary part of the mutual admittance of the two
introduce a reflection zero, an L-C series resonant circuit
antennas, Im(Y21A), is positive. From equation (1b), it is
that is shorted to ground is introduced and shown in Fig. 5
found that an AICC with negative mutual admittance is
(a), with two capacitors are connected to the two ports of
demanded.
the network. The designed circuit model of the AICC, as
Step2: Design the circuit model of the AICC. indicated in Fig. 5 (a), has the following component values:
To create a two-port passive network/circuit with a C2 = 0.47 pF, L1 = 19 nH and C1 = 0.48 pF.
negative mutual admittance, capacitive Step3: Translate the circuit model of the AICC to physical
components/capacitors should be placed in-between the two realization using LTCC technology.
ports by intuition. Furthermore, since the admittance
The designed circuit can now be realized using LTCC
parameters for a lossless network are all purely imaginary,
process, which is given in Fig. 6 (a). The substrate used in
the self-admittances of the AICC, Y11C(f) and Y22C(f) must
this example has the relative permittivity of 9.8 and the loss
approach to zero within the frequency band of interest

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Substrate C2 Smith
Ground Chart

C2 Open
Port 2
Circuit

S11
Band of interest:
Port 1
L1 1.5-2.1 GHz

C1

(a)
4 Layers Frequency：1 GHz to 4 GHz

Cond7 (a)
Cond6
Via5 5 Layers
Cond5 2 Layers
Via4 5 Layers
Cond4
Via3 5 Layers
Cond3
Via2 5 Layers
Cond2
Via1 5 Layers
Cond1
GND z
1 Layer 4 Layers
x y

(b)
Ground

Port2
Port1
Marker
Ground
(c)
Fig. 6. (a) Physical model of the proposed high-pass AICC. (b) The layer
stack of the proposed high-pass AICC. (c) Photo of the AICC chip
soldered on a PCB.
tangent of only 0.003. The thickness of each finalized
substrate layer is 21μm, and the conductor thickness is 10 μ
m. There are totally 8 layers of silver conductors including
the ground in this design. There are five via holes in the
LTCC module indicated as Via1~ Via5 in Fig. 6 (b).
Thanks to the advanced fabrication process, we can make
all via holes padless (no via-pad needed). The diameters of
the via holes are all chosen to be 100 μm. All capacitors
(C1, C2) in this design are implemented using parallel
plates. It is worth mentioning that the upper plates of
capacitors C2 are intentionally made larger than their lower
plates so that the capacitance can be stable while there are
(b)
Fig. 7 (a) Smith Chart plot of the AICC and (b) S-parameters of the
connected antennas and the AICC from 1.4 GHz to 2.8 GHz.
slight misalignments between the layers.
The inductor L1 is realized in a meandering fashion to be
fitted in a compact volume. The line width is designed as
narrow as possible to enlarge the inductance, which is
finally determined to be 80 μm according to our fabrication
process tolerance. Two ground electrodes and two
input/output electrodes are plated on the outside of the
LTCC block, which is depicted in Fig. 6 (a). The two
ground electrodes together with the ground layer could also
serve as shielding for the internal components. The
finalized AICC, which is then soldered on the PCB board,
is shown in Fig. 6 (c).
Step4: Adjust the external couplings and connect the
fabricated AICC module with the antennas in shunt to
obtain the desired performance.
The admittance parameters of the finalized AICC (Fig.
6a), Y11C and Y21C are already shown in Fig. 3 (c) and (d),
respectively. Because the network is still symmetric at this
moment, Y22C is the same as Y11C. At 2.4 GHz, the mutual
admittance between the two antennas, Y21A is about 0.0064
S, while the mutual admittance parameter of the designed
AICC, Y21C at the very same frequency is -0.0085 S. To
perfectly eliminate the mutual coupling at this frequency,

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Y21C needs to be adjusted. Two external capacitors C01 are frequency f should have positive slope. It is obvious that
connected to the AICC to slightly modify the mutual the zeros of Y11’(f) and Y22’(f) denoted by f01’ and f02’
admittance at 2.4 GHz to be -0.0063 S (Y21D), which shall have the following relation if L01≠L02
cancels out Y21A at 2.4 GHz. The sum of Y21A and Y21D is
f01'  f02' , (7)
plotted in Fig. 3 (c) as Y21T, which approach to zero around
2.4 GHz as we desired.
The matching conditions in (2) and (3) are more and
complicated to be satisfied. As is already pointed out in Step2,
to leverage the matching performance within the entire band
f01' , f02'  f0 , (8)
of interest, it is demanded to set Y11C(f) and Y22C(f) to be zero
in the center frequency of the desired operation band. In
another word, the zero of the Y11 of the AICC should be It can also be concluded from (6) that if , we
around 2.45 GHz while the zero of the Y22 of the AICC will have:
should be around 2.35 GHz. In this case, the zeros of Y11D,
Y22D are all located at around 2.26 GHz, and then, effective f01'  f02'  f0 , (9)
measures must be taken to move their zeros to 2.35GHz and
2.45GHz, respectively. Two shunt inductors, L01 and L02, are
connected to the two I/O ports of the AICC which is In this example, we intentionally place the zero of the
symmetric AICC at frequency point of 2.26GHz that is
illustrated in Fig. 5 (b). The mechanism to move zeros of Yii
lower than 2.35GHz. Then, L01 is designed to be 8.2 nH and
(i=1,2) using shunt inductors is described in Fig. 5 (c). Using
L02 is designed to be 12 nH. By doing this, the admittance
Pi-equivalent circuit, any two-port microwave network can
parameter of the AICC with two shunt inductors become
be expressed by two shunt components: (Y11+Y12), (Y22+Y12), Y11M and Y22M which are shown in Fig. 3 (d). At this time,
and one series component: (–Y12). The two shunt we are able to move the zeros of Y11M and Y22M to 2.45
components will be combined with two extra shunt inductors GHz and 2.35 GHz, respectively.
L01 and L02, and they will be converted to (Y11’+Y12) and Finally, the AICC together with two external capacitors
(Y22’+Y12), where: C01 and two shunt inductors L01 & L02 are parallel
1 connected to the coupled antennas as shown in Fig. 4. The
Y11' ( f )  Y11 ( f )  j  . (4a) precise values are listed in Table I. The responses of the
2 f  L01
entire connected network in high frequency ranging from
and 2.2 GHz to 2.65 GHz are already shown in Fig. 3 (b) (with
1 solid markers). The isolation between the two antennas is
Y22' ( f )  Y22 ( f )  j  . (4b) improved from around 15 dB to more than 30 dB near the
2 f  L02
band edge of 2.4 GHz, showing more than 15 dB
Since all admittance parameters of the AICC improvement. The matching performance of Port 1 is better
are purely imaginary, it is easy to re-write than 15 dB within the Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz band, while the
equation (4) in the following form: matching performance of Port 2 is better than 10 dB within
the LTE band-40. It should be mentioned that a L-type
1
Im Y11' ( f )   Im Y11 ( f )  (5a) matching circuit (series CM2 and shunt LM2) is used at Port 2
  2 f  L01
.
to further enhance its performance.
and Step5: Check the open-circuit condition in low-band after
using the AICC.
1
Im Y22' ( f )   Im Y22 ( f ) 
  (5b)
2 f  L02
.
To ensure that the decoupling of the two antennas near
2.4 GHz does not affect the performance in the GPS band
For a symmetrical network, supposing the zeros of the WBG antenna (connected to Port 1), one of the AICC
of Y11(f) and Y22(f) locate at f0, we shall have: port that is connected to WBG antenna shall be open-
1 circuited at least in the GPS band whose center frequency is
Im Y11' ( f0 )    1.575GHz. This is achieved by design the AICC model
  2 f  L01
. (6a)
with very small I/O capacitors, C2 together with the high-
pass nature of the circuit model shown in Fig. 5 (a). In the
physical model shown in Fig. 6, this small capacitor is
and
realized by increasing the distance between the upper and
  1
Im Y22 ( f0 )  
' lower plate of the capacitors. In this LTCC design, we
  2 f  L02
. (6b)
increase this distance to two substrate layers to reduce the
I/O capacitance.
Considering the positive real nature of any realizable
networks [27], both Im[Y11’(f)] and Im[Y22’(f)] against

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Mi-Fi (DUT) TABLE II

TRP AND TIS MEASUREMENT RESULTS OF THE MI-FI DEVICE

Link Antenna Test 1 TRP TIS

Channels 38750 39150 39550 39150 39550

With AICC 21.2 20.5 20.1 90.69 90.29

Without AICC 21.1 21 20.7 91.65 78.95

4G mobile phone

Test 2 TRP TIS

Azimuth
Positioner

Channels 38750 39150 39550 39150 39550

(a)
With AICC 20.9 20.2 20.1 91.58 90.35

Probe Array Without

21.3 20.8 20.5 91.9 76.5
AICC

LTE
B40 Wi-Fi A. Measurement Setup
Mobile
Phone
Mi-Fi As shown in Fig. 8. The active measurement of the Mi-Fi
device with coupled LTE Band-40 and Wi-Fi antennas is
conducted in a SATIMO SG-24 near field anechoic
Link chamber [28]. To eliminate interference from other wireless
Antenna
Down Link
transmission, other antennas are removed, keeping only
LTE Band-40 and Wi-Fi antennas. The DUT (Mi-Fi) is
placed on the azimuth positioner and put in the center of the
probe array. A mobile phone is also placed in the chamber
Up Link near the DUT.
Communication Tester
The TIS (total isotropic sensitivity) measurement of the
(RS. CMW500) DUT is conducted using conventional method but with the
(b) DUT’s Wi-Fi in hotspot mode. That is to say, as the
Fig. 8 (a) The photo; (b) The block diagram of the active measurement
configuration in a near field 24-probe anechoic chamber
measurement is ongoing, the DUT’s Wi-Fi module is
always communicating with the mobile phone while the
LTE Band-40 transceiver of the DUT is only in its
The smith chart of the designed AICC is plotted in Fig. 7 receiving mode as shown in Fig. 8 (b). To ensure that our
(a). It is obvious that we are able to control the open circuit decoupling design do not affect the efficiency of the Band-
frequency of the AICC to work around 1.575 GHz. The 40 antennas, TRP (total radiated power) measurement is
overall S-parameters of the coupled antennas only as well also conducted.
as the connected coupled antennas and AICC from 1.4 GHz
to 2.8 GHz are also superposed in Fig. 7 (b). At the GPS B. Results and Discussion
band, the reflection and isolation curves are almost The measured TRP values of the following three channels
unchanged after adding the AICC. of LTE Band-40 are recorded for the DUT with and without
the AICC we designed: channel 38750 (2.30262 GHz),
III. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION BY ACTIVE channel 39150 (2.35 GHz) and channel 39550 (2.39738
MEASUREMENT GHz). TIS measurement is only carried out in channel
To verify that our decoupling measures are effective in 39150 (2.35 GHz) and channel 39550 (2.39 GHz).
real-world applications, active measurements are carried The measurement is conducted twice, and their
out in an anechoic chamber. respective results are listed in Table II, showing good

VOLUME XX, 2018 9

2169-3536 (c) 2018 IEEE. Translations and content mining are permitted for academic research only. Personal use is also permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See
http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
 This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI
10.1109/ACCESS.2018.2853709, IEEE Access
repeatability. We can draw the following conclusions from
the tests:
1) The strong mutual coupling between the LTE Band-
40 and Wi-Fi antennas significantly deteriorates the
TIS in the high band of LTE Band-40. The
measured TIS of the DUT without AICC in channel
39550 located at 2.39 GHz, is around 76~78 dBm,
which is about 12~14 dB lower compared to the
TISs in channel 38750 and channel 39150.
2) In channel 38750 and channel 39150, the Wi-Fi
filter rejection characteristic successfully helps to
eliminate unwanted interference from Wi-Fi.
3) Using the AICC will not affect the TRP of LTE
Band- 40, as the TRP values in all three measured
channels of the DUT with and without the AICC
differ from each other by no more than 1 dB, which
is within measurement uncertainty.
4) A good decoupling design using the AICC, not only
improves the passive isolation between the two
coupled antennas, but also recovers the TIS of the
channel 39550 of the LTE Band-40 transceiver to
around 90 dBm.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors would like to thank Mr. Fujimoto at Hirai
corporation for the help on LTCC fabrication. We would also
express our gratitude to the testing engineers: Chao Jing,
Xudong Zhang at Innowave Wireless Ltd. for the active
measurement. We are also grateful to Dr. Kewei Qian and
Mr. Li Liu from Filter Group for preparation of the samples
and helpful discussions.
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