PREMO Group has developed the first radio clock receiver antenna with SMD technology, the RCA-SMD series, in the market used in automotive, outdoor lamp switch-on-off control applications. The component is supplied in tape and reel, ready to use in automatic pick and place SMT machines. In a time signal receiver circuit, the antenna is the biggest component used; PREMO has miniaturized it enough (75mm x 15mm x 6.3mm) to develop low profiles PCB’s with 100% integration level, avoiding flying wires or manual assemblies in the complete process.
The antenna is shipped already tuned to the resonant frequency specified. The fine tuning process is done in the PREMO production line by a high reliable automatic station. This station check the antenna in real-time, achieving a high precision in the center frequency tuned.
These kind of antennas are configured as L-C resonant parallel tank (RCA-SMD-77A: 1.3mH // 3.3nF for 77.5 kHz and RCA-SMD-60A: 2.1mH // 3.3nF for 60 kHz) which offer a higher resistance (more than 75 kOhms) at resonance frequency (+/- 0.2 kHz).
Standard SMD version of this new radio clock antenna (at 40, 60 and 77.5 kHz) will be available in the market by Q3-2009. Others through-hole and flying-lead versions including others resonance frequencies are under development by Q4-2009.