An ultra low-voltage, low-power baseband-processor for UHF RFID tag

A novel ultra low-voltage, low-power baseband-processor for UHF radio frequency identification (RFID) tag is presented here. The baseband-processor is compatible with the EPC™ class-1 generation-2 (C1G2) UHF RFID protocol, and fits the requirements of ultra low-power of passive tags. Based on the analysis of the special power consumption of the tag, a new architecture is proposed. A novel scheme for generating pseudo-random numbers as well as a new method of partial-decoding is developed. Besides, other low-power techniques are also adopted for the special baseband-processor which implements complex functions, such as encoding/coding, anti-collision and authorization scheme, and reading/writing operation to EEPROM. The chip was fabricated in 0.35 µm 1P3M standard CMOS process. Experimental results show that it achieves low power operation of 3.15 µW @ 1.5 V with the core area of 1.1 mm × 0.8 mm.

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