A mm-wave power harvesting RFID tag in 90nm CMOS

A mm-wave power-harvesting RFID tag is implemented in 90nm CMOS. Operation at mm-wave reduces antenna size and could allow antenna integration on-chip. This, together with power harvesting that can be used in lieu of a battery, can result in a CMOS-only tag with no off-chip components whatsoever. The tag harvests energy from the incoming mm-wave CW signal by the reader and then uses a 60GHz free-running oscillator to transmit back pulse-width modulated bursts. With 2dBm mm-wave input power, the tag transmits 5kb/s. The tag size is 1.3×0.95mm2 including pads.

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