A UHF Passive RFID Tag Front-End Design With a Novel True Random Number Generator

Abstract

Among various wireless communication methods, the ultra-high frequency (UHF) passive Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) electronic tags are widely used due to their ability to transfer information without internal power supply. In this study, a low-power UHF passive RFID tag front-end with a novel structure including a true random number generator is designed and fabricated in standard 180nm CMOS technology. The proposed front-end circuit includes an analog front-end, an RF front-end, and an impedance matching network. The received RF energy is impedance-matched to the analog frontend, generating a power supply voltage for the RF front-end. The RF front-end performs signal demodulation and generates a reference clock. A novel true random number generator (TRNG) is designed in the proposed RF front-end to achieve signal anti-collision functionality. The experimental results indicate that the total power consumption of the RFID tag front-end is 8.67μW, and the TRNG circuit can produce a series of random number with 85.5% of credibility, which effectively improves the randomness of the communication keys.

Enhancing Laboratory Experience: A Combination of RFID and Machine Learning Techniques to Track Attendance and Upgrade Hardware

“…RFID tags that run on batteries have tiny batteries inserted into them to supply electricity message transmit. Typically, a computer tag consists of a digital baseline, a persistent storage device (NVM), and an external chip [3]. Although RFID has been around since the 1940s, its application became increasingly widespread in the 1970s.…”