You Asked, We Answered: Printed NFC Antenna
Why would I want the NFC antenna printed on the sensor?
That is a great question, for this one we went to Mike Hansen, our New Product Development Manager.
The bottom line is pretty simple: the ability to screen print conductive silver for use as an antenna carries with it a couple useful pluses.
First, the fact that the antenna is screen printed allows for rapid and relatively inexpensive antenna configuration tests. If iterations are needed, the screen printed antenna makes this easy.
Second, screen printing the antenna allows it to be integrated with a graphic panel, which has as a virtue increased flexibility to locate the antenna in an advantageous place. This feature has proven to be able to offset a disadvantage of higher resistance compared to other antenna technologies. Additionally, moving the closer to the user helps prevent additional layers above it from interfering with transmission of data.
Third, the screen printed antenna integrated with another part such as the capacitive touch sensor helps a customer to reduce the total number of components, and is likely a lower cost option than a separate antenna.
Printed antennas are a great option for some projects, and we have the expertise to print them!