A UHF/UWB hybrid silicon RFID tag with on–chip antennas

Abstract

In this contribution, we describe and analyse a miniature wireless radio frequency identification (RFID) chip with on-chip antennas (OCA) and ultra wideband (UWB) signalling by real-world measurements. With the on-chip antenna approach, no external antennas are required, and the size of the overall tag is identical to the size of the chip alone (3.5 mm × 1 mm). The chip is powered through inductive coupling and controlled by an RFID signal at 866 MHz in the downlink, while the uplink transmits a quaternary pulse-position-modulated (4-PPM) UWB signal at 5.64 GHz with pulses having a duration in the order of nanoseconds. In this contribution, the hybrid or asymmetric communication scheme between prototype chip and reader, the embedded OCA, and the measurement setup are described. The prototype achieves 4-PPM bit rate of 126 Mbit/s based on a pulse-train transmission with a duration of 10 μs. The small size, high data rate, and fine time resolution of the UWB impulse radio offer new features and sensing capabilities for future RFID-like applications.