- The module must be placed on the main board – the printed antenna area must overlap with the carrier board. The portion of the module containing the antenna must not go outside the edge of the main board. The antenna is designed to work properly when it is sitting directly on top of a 1.5 mm thick printed circuit board. The following figure shows the best, poor and worst case module placements in the host board.
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If the module is placed at the edge of the host board, a minimum 22 mm by 5 mm area directly under the antenna must be clear of all metal on all layers of the board. “In-land” placement is acceptable; however, the depth of the keep-out area must groove to: module edge to host board edge plus 5 mm.Note: Do not place the module in the middle of the host board or far away from the host board edge.
- Follow the module placement, keepout
and host PCB cutout recommendation as shown in the following figure.
- Avoid routing any traces in the highlighted region on the top layer of the host board, which is directly below the module area.
- Follow the electrical keep-out layer recommendation as shown in the following figure. There must not be any copper in any of the layers of the host board in this region. Avoid placing any components (like mechanical spacers, bumpon, etc.) in the recommended electrical keep-out area.
- Place the GND polygon pour below the module with the recommended boundary in the top layer of the host board as shown in the following figure. There must not be any breaks in this GND plane.
- Place sufficient GND vias in the highlighted area below the module for better RF performance.
- It is recommended to have a 3x3 grid of GND vias solidly connecting the exposed GND paddle of the module to the inner layer ground plane. This acts as a good ground and thermal conduction for the ATWINC15x0-MR210PB module. The GND vias must have a minimum via hole size of 0.3 mm.
- Follow the mechanical boundary of the host PCB as shown in the the following figure.
- Keep large metal objects away from the antenna to avoid electromagnetic field blocking.
- Do not enclose the antenna within a metal shield.
- Keep any components that may radiate noise or signals within the 2.4 GHz – 2.5 GHz frequency band away from the antenna and if possible, shield those components. Any noise radiated from the host board in this frequency band will degrade the sensitivity of the module.
- Make sure the width of the traces routed to GND, VDDIO and VBAT rails are sufficiently larger for handling the peak TX current consumption.
Figure 1. ATWINC15x0-MR210PB Placement Reference
Figure 2. ATWINC15x0-MR210PB Placement Example
