Reliability and Failure Analysis of UHF RFID Passive Tags Under Thermal Storage

Abstract

This paper proposes to study the effects of thermal storage on the reliability of passive UHF RFID tags. Two types of tags M1 and M2 from two different manufacturers are aged under two high temperatures equal to 413 K and 433 K. Tested tags are put into a thermal storage oven hang fixed terms. The performances of these tags are measured after each aging phase to determine the power loss caused by the high temperature storage. Then a mathematical approach is used to estimate for both tags from the two manufacturers the law of reliability under nominal conditions. Statistical and physical analyses of the results allow us to study and analyze the mechanisms of aging. It is observed that the failure mechanisms depend on the type of passive tags and the values of selected storage temperatures for the tests. The scale parameters of M1 tags aged at 413 K are around 280 hours, whereas the scale parameters of the M2 tags aged at same temperature are around 360 hours. Cracks on the antenna are observed with the higher temperature equal to 433 K for M1 tags. However, the changes of the performance of others tags are probably caused by changes in the matching of the impedance between the antenna and the RFIC. From this study, various failure mechanisms demonstrate the necessity of determining the type of passive tags and the used temperature.

RFID Tag Failure after Thermal Overstress

“…The four groups were exposed to different stress times at the highest temperature (soak times t s ), while all other parameters remained the same. A first observation is that all tags survive temperature excursions up to 300 • C. This is considerably higher than previous works report for earlier-generation RFID tags with larger coils [7] - [9]. Most of these data further indicate that a longer soak time increases the probability of device failure.…”

“…In this work, failure of the RFID tag is defined as a faulty returned code or no response to a readout request. Other published functionality criteria for RFID tags include the power threshold for an RFID tag to respond [7], power of the returned signal [9], or its maximum read range at given read power [10]. True loss of functionality will depend heavily on the application.…”

“…At low ramp rates (5 • C/minute or lower) the device reliability improves [7], [8]. Taoufik et al [9] study the effect of long-term storage at temperatures up to 160 • C accumulating to several hundred hours. A gradual reduction of the tag's response power was observed; physical analysis showed deformation of the polymer matrix and cracks in the antenna conductors.…”

Investigation of Thermal behaviour of Swelling Anti-Fire Composite Materials Identified with RFID Technology

“…In the literature it was reported that during high-temperature cycling tests damage of the tested RFID tags was due to cracks between a pad and an antenna layer [36]. In another study [37] it was found that improper work of the tested RFID tags was caused by cracks in the antenna layer. Furthermore, changes in a chip to antenna attachment material can be taken place what may cause variation in the impedance matching between chip and antenna.…”

New Technologies of Power Transistors for Efficiency Increase of Power Converters: The Reliability Consideration

“…The different parameters: Failure rate (Lambda), MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) and MTTR (Mean Time To Repair) provide valuable information for system design and maintenance. The reference [10] describes reliability studies carried out on RFID tags, the performance of two tags of two manufacturers aged in temperature storage were compared. These various steps make it possible to validate the study of the component in its mission profile, thus meeting the requirements of the user, but also to extract and analyze the physical defects at the origin of degradations of its characteristics.…”