Electronic device with adjustable wireless circuitry

• US 9,444,425 B2
• Filed: 06/20/2014
• Issued: 09/13/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 06/20/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Mow, Matthew A., Biedka, Thomas E., Han, Liang, Tsai, Ming-Ju, Judkins, James G., Ayala Vazquez, Enrique, Nath, Jayesh, Hu, Hongfei, Jin, Nanbo, Xu, Hao, Zhou, Yijun, Ouyang, Yuehui, Lee, Victor, Pascolini, Mattia, Caballero, Ruben
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Lee
• Application Number:
  US14/310,240
• Publication Number:
  US 20150372656A1
• Time in Patent Office: 816 Days
• Field of Search: 455120-121, 343/852, 343860-861
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H03H 7/38 Impedance-matching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/0458 Arrangements for matching and coupling between power amplifier and antenna or between amplifying stages matching circuits in general H03H
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/18 Input circuits, e.g. for coupling to an antenna or a transmission line coupling networks between antennas or lines and receivers independent of the nature of the receiver H03H
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/48 in circuits for connecting transmitter and receiver to a common transmission path, e.g. by energy of transmitter H04B1/46 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 17/29 Performance testing

Abstract

An electronic device may be provided with wireless circuitry. Control circuitry may be used to adjust the wireless circuitry. The wireless circuitry may include antennas that are tuned, adjustable impedance matching circuitry, antenna port selection circuitry, and adjustable transceiver circuitry. Wireless circuit adjustments may be made by ascertaining a current usage scenario for the electronic device based on sensor data, information from cellular base station equipment or other external equipment, signal-to-noise ratio information or other signal information, antenna impedance measurements, and other information about the operation of the electronic device.

Claims

1. An electronic device that wirelessly communicates with external equipment, comprising:

an antenna;

wireless radio-frequency transceiver circuitry that transmits and receives radio-frequency signals through the antenna, wherein the wireless radio-frequency transceiver circuitry comprises multiple transceivers;

a tunable component that tunes the antenna; and

control circuitry that tunes the tunable component to tune the antenna based on information received from the external equipment, wherein the control circuitry comprises baseband circuitry configured to generate receive signal strength performance metric values for each of the multiple transceivers, and the control circuitry is configured to generate a weighted summation of the generated receive signal strength performance metric values and is configured to adjust the wireless radio-frequency transceiver circuitry based on the weighted summation.

2. The electronic device defined in claim 1 further comprising:

adjustable antenna impedance matching circuitry coupled between the wireless radio-frequency transceiver circuitry and the antenna, wherein the control circuitry adjusts the adjustable antenna impedance matching circuitry.

3. The electronic device defined in claim 2 wherein the control circuitry is configured to adjust the adjustable antenna impedance matching circuitry based on the information received from the external equipment.

4. The electronic device defined in claim 2 further comprising a sensor, wherein the control circuitry adjusts the adjustable antenna impedance matching circuitry based on information from the sensor.

5. The electronic device defined in claim 1 wherein the external equipment comprises a cellular telephone network base station and wherein the control circuitry tunes the antenna based on information received from the cellular telephone network base station.

6. The electronic device defined in claim 1 wherein the antenna is one of multiple antennas in the electronic device, wherein the wireless radio-frequency transceiver circuitry comprises multiple transceivers, wherein the electronic device further comprises antenna port selection circuitry coupled between the transceivers and the wireless radio-frequency transceiver circuitry, and wherein the control circuitry adjusts the antenna port selection circuitry.

7. The electronic device defined in claim 1 further comprising a sensor, wherein the control circuitry tunes the antenna based on information from the sensor.

8. The electronic device defined in claim 7 wherein the sensor is a proximity sensor.

9. The electronic device defined in claim 7 wherein the sensor is an accelerometer.

10. An electronic device that wirelessly communicates with external equipment, comprising:

an antenna having an antenna resonating element, a feed path coupled to the antenna resonating element, and an antenna ground;

wireless radio-frequency transceiver circuitry that transmits and receives radio-frequency signals through the antenna;

a tunable component that is interposed on a tuning circuit path that is coupled between the antenna resonating element and the antenna ground, wherein the tunable component tunes the antenna;

control circuitry that tunes the tunable component to tune the antenna based on information received from the external equipment; and

a coupler that is interposed on the tuning circuit path and coupled to the wireless radio-frequency transceiver circuitry, wherein the control circuitry uses the coupler to gather antenna impedance information on the antenna.

11. The electronic device defined in claim 10 wherein the control circuitry is configured to tune the antenna based on the antenna impedance information.

12. The electronic device defined in claim 10 further comprising:

adjustable antenna impedance matching circuitry coupled between the wireless radio-frequency transceiver circuitry and the antenna, wherein the control circuitry adjusts the adjustable antenna impedance matching circuitry based on the antenna impedance information.

13. The electronic device defined in claim 10, wherein the coupler is interposed between the tunable component and the antenna resonating element.

14. An electronic device that wirelessly communicates with external equipment, comprising:

an antenna having an antenna resonating element, a feed path coupled to the antenna resonating element, and an antenna ground;

wireless radio-frequency transceiver circuitry that transmits and receives radio-frequency signals through the antenna;

control circuitry that tunes the tunable component to tune the antenna based on information received from the external equipment;

a first coupler that is coupled to a first location on the antenna resonating element; and

a second coupler that is coupled to a second location on the antenna resonating element that is different from the first location, wherein the control circuitry uses the first and second couplers to gather antenna impedance information on the antenna.

15. The electronic device defined in claim 14, wherein the first coupler is coupled between the first location on the antenna resonating element and the wireless radio-frequency transceiver circuitry and the second coupler is coupled between the second location on the antenna resonating element and the wireless radio-frequency transceiver circuitry.