Progress Toward Development of All-Printed RFID Tags: Materials, Processes, and Devices

Printed electronics provides a promising potential pathway toward the realization of ultralow-cost RFID tags for item-level tracking of consumer goods. Here, we report on our progress in developing materials, processes, and devices for the realization of ultralow-cost printed RFID tags. Using printed nanoparticle patterns that are subsequently sintered at plastic-compatible temperatures, low-resistance interconnects and passive components have been realized. Simultaneously, printed transistors with mobilities >10/sup -1/ cm/sup 2//V-s have been realized using novel pentacene and oligothiophene precursors for pMOS and ZnO nanoparticles for nMOS. AC performance of these devices is adequate for 135-kHz RFID, though significant work remains to be done to achieve 13.56-MHz operation.

[1]  Vivek Subramanian,et al.  Film Morphology and Thin Film Transistor Performance of Solution-Processed Oligothiophenes , 2004 .

[2]  Vivek Subramanian,et al.  Plastic-Compatible Low Resistance Printable Gold Nanoparticle Conductors for Flexible Electronics , 2003 .

[3]  V. Subramanian,et al.  A high-performance all-inkjetted organic transistor technology , 2004, IEDM Technical Digest. IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, 2004..

[4]  Klaus Finkenzeller,et al.  Book Reviews: RFID Handbook: Fundamentals and Applications in Contactless Smart Cards and Identification, 2nd ed. , 2004, ACM Queue.

[5]  Vivek Subramanian,et al.  Inkjetted Organic Transistors using a Novel Pentacene Precursor , 2003 .

[6]  Debra J. Mascaro,et al.  Organic thin-film transistors: A review of recent advances , 2001, IBM J. Res. Dev..

[7]  D. A. Ender,et al.  Organic semiconductor RFID transponders , 2003, IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting 2003.

[8]  C. Dimitrakopoulos,et al.  Low-voltage organic transistors on plastic comprising high-dielectric constant gate insulators , 1999, Science.

[9]  R. Imura.  The World's Smallest RFID /spl mu/-Chip, bringing about new business and lifestyles , 2004, 2004 Symposium on VLSI Circuits. Digest of Technical Papers (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37525).

[10]  Vivek Subramanian,et al.  Ink-jetted Silver/Copper conductors for printed RFID applications , 2004 .

[11]  Ali Afzali,et al.  High-performance, solution-processed organic thin film transistors from a novel pentacene precursor. , 2002, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[12]  J. S. Smith.  High density, low parasitic direct integration by fluidic self assembly (FSA) , 2000, International Electron Devices Meeting 2000. Technical Digest. IEDM (Cat. No.00CH37138).

[13]  V. Subramanian,et al.  Single-monolayer inkjetted oligothiophene organic TFTs exhibiting high performance and low leakage , 2004, Conference Digest [Includes 'Late News Papers' volume] Device Research Conference, 2004. 62nd DRC..

[14]  Vivek Subramanian,et al.  Organic thin film transistors from a soluble oligothiophene derivative containing thermally removable solubilizing groups. , 2004, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[15]  Daniel W. Engels,et al.  Radio Frequency Identification and the Electronic Product Code , 2001, IEEE Micro.

[16]  Tom Ahlkvist Scharfeld.  An analysis of the fundamental constraints on low cost passive radio-frequency identification system design , 2001 .

[17]  R. Brederlow,et al.  Molecular thin film transistors with a subthreshold swing of 100 mV/decade , 2003, IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting 2003.

[18]  V. Subramanian,et al.  A novel transparent air-stable printable n-type semiconductor technology using ZnO nanoparticles , 2004, IEDM Technical Digest. IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, 2004..

[19]  Rajeev Bansal.  Coming soon to a Wal-Mart near you , 2003 .

[20]  Paul F. Baude,et al.  High Performance Organic Thin Film Transistors , 2003 .