Apple Inc.
Spatial Thermal Density Reduction for MMWAVE Antenna Arrays

Abstract:

An apparatus, method and computer readable medium for special thermal density reduction by antenna thinning. A system comprises N transmit/receive (TX/RX) chains, where each TX/RX chain comprises an RFFE and each RFFE comprises one or more thermal sensors configured to measure heat in the RFFE. An antenna array coupled to the plurality of TX/RX chains. A codebook that comprises a plurality of code words configured to respond to real-time heat measurements from the thermal sensors in each TX/RX chain is configured to switch off selected TX/RX chains to reduce thermal density at the antenna array while maintaining M RFFEs switched on, where M<N and the desired beamforming gain is 10 log 10(M).