SPIRAL NEAR FIELD COMMUNICATION (NFC) COIL FOR CONSISTENT COUPLING WITH DIFFERENT TAGS AND DEVICES

• US 20140002225A1
• Filed: 06/29/2012
• Published: 01/02/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/29/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Anand S. Konanur
• Inventors: Konanur, Anand S., Karacaoglu, Ulun, Yang, Songnan
• Granted Patent: US 9,934,895 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 336/200
• CPC Class Codes: H01F 5/003 Printed circuit coils
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 1/2216 used in interrogator/reader equipment
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 1/2266 disposed inside the computer
• CPC Class Codes: H01Q 7/00 Loop antennas with a substantially uniform current distribution around the loop and having a directional radiation pattern in a plane perpendicular to the plane of the loop
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 5/26 using coils
• CPC Class Codes: Y10T 29/49016 Antenna or wave energy "plumbing" making

Abstract

This document discloses one or more systems, apparatuses, methods, etc. for integrating a spiral near field communications (NFC) coil antenna to a portable device for consistent coupling with different tags and devices.

Claims

1. A portable device comprising:

one or more processors;

a memory configured to the processors;

a spiral shaped near field communications (NFC) coil antenna configured to the processors wherein the spiral shaped NFC coil antenna is configured to include an first loop, a second layer loop that is tied to the first loop, and an third loop that is tied to the second layer loop, wherein the first loop, the second loop, and the third loop are gradually distributed to cover loop areas based on listeners with different sized antennas, and wherein the different sized antennas have progressively larger sized antenna loop areas.

2. The portable device as recited in claim 1, wherein the different sized antennas include coil antenna designs used in credit cards, tags, or devices.

3. The portable device as recited in claim 1, wherein the different sized antennas include a sense coil with at least one or more number of turns that are grouped together without regard to spaces between each loop in the turns.

4. The portable device as recited in claim 1, the first loop, the second layer loop, and the third loop are configured to include as rectangular shapes and correspond to different sized antennas of as defined by NFC Forum.

5. The portable device as recited in claim 1, wherein the first loop, the second layer loop, and the third loop are configured to overlap at least 80% of the antenna loop areas as defined by NFC Forum.

6. The portable device as recited in claim 1, wherein the first loop, the second layer loop, and the third loop are configured to maintain mutual inductance with the different sized antennas by configuring construction of each loop to have a separate reference from the other loop.

7. The portable device as recited in claim 1, wherein the spiral shaped NFC coil antenna is made out of a printed circuit board (PCB), a flexible printed circuit (FPC), a metal wire created through a laser direct structuring (LDS) process, or directly embedded to metal chassis and underneath conductive coating of a portable device.

8. The portable device as recited in claim 1, wherein the different sized antennas have different relative centers.

9. A near field communications (NFC) antenna comprising:

a continuous loop of coil antenna to form a spiral shaped NFC coil antenna to include an innermost loop, a middle layer loop, and an outermost loop, wherein the innermost loop, the middle layer loop, and the outermost loop are configured to cover loop areas based on different sized listener sense coils, wherein the different sized listener sense coils have progressively larger sized sense coils areas; and

an NFC module to tune the coil antenna.

10. The NFC antenna in claim 9, wherein the innermost loop, the middle layer loop, and the outermost loop are configured as a rectangular shape, a circular shape, or a dissimilar shape.

11. The NFC antenna in claim 9, wherein the innermost loop, the middle layer loop, and the outermost loop are configured to overlap at least 80% of the loop area covered by sense coils as defined by NFC Forum listeners 6, 3, and 1, respectively.

12. The NFC antenna in claim 9, wherein the innermost loop is tied to the middle layer loop, and the middle layer loop are tied to the outermost loop.

13. The NFC antenna in claim 9, wherein the spiral shaped NFC coil antenna is made out of a printed circuit board (PCB), a flexible printed circuit (FPC), a metal wire, created through a laser direct structuring (LDS) process, or directly embedded to metal chassis and underneath conductive coating of a portable device.

14. The NFC antenna in claim 9, wherein the different sized listener sense coils have different relative centers.

15. A method of constructing a spiral shaped near field communications (NFC) coil antenna for a portable device comprising:

constructing an innermost loop of the spiral shaped NFC coil antenna;

constructing a middle layer loop that is tied to the innermost loop;

constructing an outermost loop that is tied to the middle layer loop, wherein the innermost loop, the middle layer loop, and the outermost loop are configured to cover loop areas based on different sized listener sense coils, wherein the different sized listener sense coils have progressively larger sized sense coils areas; and

integrating the spiral shape NFC coil antenna to the portable device.

16. The method in claim 15, wherein the innermost loop, the middle layer loop, and the outermost loop are used to read credit cards, tags or devices, wherein the innermost loop, the middle layer loop, and the outermost loop are based upon the loop areas of different sense coil designs as defined by NFC Forum listeners 6, 3, and 1, respectively

17. The method in claim 15, wherein constructing the innermost loop, the middle layer loop, and the outermost loop are based on a ratio of the loop areas that are covered by the different sized listener sense coils as defined NFC Forum listeners 6, 3, and 1.

18. The method in claim 15, wherein the spiral shaped NFC coil antenna is rectangular in shape.

19. The method in claim 15, wherein constructing the innermost loop, middle layer loop and the outermost layer loop include maintaining of mutual inductance with the different sized listener sense coils by configuring the construction of each loop to be based from a separate size of listener sense coil.

20. The method of claim 15, wherein the different sized listener sense coils have different relative centers.