APPLICATION NOTE
nRF402 RF and antenna layout
nAN400-06
1.
General
Gerber files for RF layouts have been made for Nordic VLSI’s nRF402 Single Chip
433MHz RF Transmitter [1]. Three different loop antennas for 433MHz have also
been made available.
The Gerber files for each layout are compressed into the Zip archive format. The Zip
archive files includes a file named readme.wri that must be read before importing the
Gerber files into the PCB editor.
All described layouts should be fabricated on standard 1.6mm double-sided FR4
printed circuit board.
2.
RF layout for nRF402
The RF layouts include all necessary circuitry to design the radio frequency part of a
short range communication system based on nRF402. The transmitter data and
control lines DIN, CS and PWR_UP are available at the perimeter of the RF layout
and should be connected to the digital part of a customer’s application. +3V and GND
are also available at the perimeter of the RF layout. The +3V for the RF part of the
application circuit should be filtered separately from the supply voltages of any digital
circuitry. Star routing is strictly recommended from the +3V supply source to the RF,
digital or other parts of the application circuit.
All RF layouts presented below are equal except for the antenna connection circuitry.
Solutions for differential connection to loop antenna and single ended connection to
50W antenna are presented.
2.1. Differential connection to loop antenna
Figure 1 shows the schematics for RF layout with differential connection to a loop
antenna. The PCB layout is shown in Figure 2. The loop antenna layouts described in
chapter 3 can easily be placed together with this RF layout. The connection points
numbered 1, 2 and 3 on the loop antenna layouts should be connected exactly to the
corresponding connection points numbered 1, 2 and 3 on the RF layout.
If the loop antenna of practical reasons has to be connected further away from the
nRF402, the connection has to be symmetrical and the length of the PCB tracks must
not exceed about 6cm. Since the loop antenna is a tuned antenna, the tuning of the
antenna has to be checked in this case.
The Gerber files Zip archive filename is PCB_nRF402_diff.zip.
Nordic VLSI ASA
Revision: 1.1
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Vestre Rosten 81, N-7075 Tiller, Norway
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Phone +47 72 89 89 00
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Fax +47 72 89 89 89
February 2000
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