A Low-Cost UHF RFID System With OCA Tag for Short-Range Communication

An ultrahigh-frequency RF identification system, consisting of a fully integrated tag and a special reader, has been developed for short-range and harsh size requirement applications. The system is fabricated in the standard 0.18-μm CMOS process. The whole tag chip with an antenna, an analog front end, a baseband, and memory takes up an area of 0.36 mm2, which is smaller than other reported tags with an on-chip antenna (OCA) using the standard CMOS process. A self-defined protocol is proposed to reduce the power consumption and minimize the size of the tag. A specialized system-on-a-chip reader system, consisting of RF transceiver, digital baseband, MCU, and host interface, supports both the self-defined and International Standards Organization 18000-6 C protocols. Its power consumption is about 500 mW, which is much lower than other reported readers considering the transmission power. Measurement results show that the system's reading range is 2 mm with a 20-dBm reader output power. In addition, it has been verified that the data stored in the OCA tag embedded in a pearl can be successfully read out. With an inductive antenna printed on a paper substrate around the OCA tag, the reading range can be extended from several centimeters to meters depending on the shape and size of the inductive antenna.

[1]  M. Usami.  An ultra small RFID chip: /spl mu/-chip , 2004, 2004 IEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFIC) Systems. Digest of Papers.

[2]  Francesco Martinelli,et al.  Mobile Robot Localization Using the Phase of Passive UHF RFID Signals , 2014, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.

[3]  Chuan Wang,et al.  A Single-Chip CMOS UHF RFID Reader Transceiver for Chinese Mobile Applications , 2010, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[4]  Zhi-Hua Zhou,et al.  Multi-instance multi-label learning , 2008, Artif. Intell..

[5]  Chen Wei,et al.  High-Efficiency Differential RF Front-End for a Gen2 RFID Tag , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs.

[6]  Byung-Jun Jang,et al.  Range Correlation Effect on the Phase Noise of an UHF RFID Reader , 2008, IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters.

[7]  F. De Flaviis,et al.  A UHF Near-Field RFID System With Fully Integrated Transponder , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.

[8]  K. Kotani,et al.  High-Efficiency Differential-Drive CMOS Rectifier for UHF RFIDs , 2009, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[9]  Bing Jiang,et al.  Energy Scavenging for Inductively Coupled Passive RFID Systems , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement.

[10]  Yunseong Eo,et al.  A Single-Chip CMOS Transceiver for UHF Mobile RFID Reader , 2008, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[11]  A. Shamim,et al.  The last barrier: on-chip antennas , 2013, IEEE Microwave Magazine.

[12]  Zhihua Wang,et al.  A fully integrated CMOS UHF RFID reader transceiver for handheld applications , 2009, 2009 IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference.

[13]  M. Usami.  An ultra-small RFID chip: /spl mu/-chip , 2004, Proceedings of 2004 IEEE Asia-Pacific Conference on Advanced System Integrated Circuits.

[14]  Georges G. E. Gielen,et al.  Far-Field On-Chip Antennas Monolithically Integrated in a Wireless-Powered 5.8-GHz Downlink/UWB Uplink RFID Tag in 0.18-$\mu{\hbox {m}}$ Standard CMOS , 2010, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[15]  I. Kipnis,et al.  A 900 MHz UHF RFID Reader Transceiver IC , 2007, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[16]  Duong Huynh Thai Vo,et al.  A Fully Integrated HF-Band Passive RFID Tag IC Using 0.18- $\mu\hbox{m}$ CMOS Technology for Low-Cost Security Applications , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.

[17]  Wenyan Wu,et al.  Efficient Object Localization Using Sparsely Distributed Passive RFID Tags , 2013, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.

[18]  Zhihua Wang,et al.  Learning to Detect Frame Synchronization , 2013, ICONIP.

[19]  Zhihua Wang,et al.  A Multi-Tag Emulator for the UHF RFID System , 2014, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement.

[20]  Hongyu Li,et al.  A 2.45-GHz Near-Field RFID System With Passive On-Chip Antenna Tags , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.

[21]  Ananda Sanagavarapu Mohan,et al.  Novel Bridge-Loop Reader for Positioning With HF RFID Under Sparse Tag Grid , 2014, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.

[22]  Sanghyun Cho,et al.  A true single SoC for UHF mobile RFID reader , 2011, 2011 Proceedings of the ESSCIRC (ESSCIRC).

[23]  Hao Min,et al.  On-chip antenna design for UHF RFID , 2009 .

[24]  Yu-Jung Huang,et al.  Efficient Implementation of RFID Mutual Authentication Protocol , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.

[25]  U. Hilleringmann,et al.  Analysis of Energy Transmission for Inductive Coupled RFID Tags , 2007, 2007 IEEE International Conference on RFID.

[26]  Zhihua Wang,et al.  A 1.8V 74mW UHF RFID reader receiver with 18.5dBm IIP3 and −77dBm sensitivity in 0.18µm CMOS , 2010, 2010 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium.

[27]  Valerie M. Thomas,et al.  Optimization of inductive RFID technology , 2001, Proceedings of the 2001 IEEE International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment. 2001 IEEE ISEE (Cat. No.01CH37190).

[28]  James R. Foulds,et al.  A review of multi-instance learning assumptions , 2010, The Knowledge Engineering Review.

[29]  K. Kotani,et al.  Differential-drive CMOS rectifier for UHF RFIDs with 66% PCE at −12 dBm Input , 2008, 2008 IEEE Asian Solid-State Circuits Conference.

[30]  Zhihua Wang,et al.  A low-cost, low-power UHF RFID reader transceiver for mobile applications , 2012, 2012 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium.