Far-Field On-Chip Antennas Monolithically Integrated in a Wireless-Powered 5.8-GHz Downlink/UWB Uplink RFID Tag in 0.18-$\mu{\hbox {m}}$ Standard CMOS

Abstract

This paper discusses two antennas monolithically integrated on-chip to be used respectively for wireless powering and UWB transmission of a tag designed and fabricated in 0.18-μm CMOS technology. A multiturn loop-dipole structure with inductive and resistive stubs is chosen for both antennas. Using these on-chip antennas, the chip employs asymmetric communication links: at downlink, the tag captures the required supply wirelessly from the received RF signal transmitted by a reader and, for the uplink, ultra-wideband impulse-radio (UWB-IR), in the 3.1-10.6-GHz band, is employed instead of backscattering to achieve extremely low power and a high data rate up to 1 Mb/s. At downlink with the on-chip power-scavenging antenna and power-management unit circuitry properly designed, 7.5-cm powering distance has been achieved, which is a huge improvement in terms of operation distance compared with other reported tags with on-chip antenna. Also, 7-cm operating distance is achieved with the implemented on-chip UWB antenna. The tag can be powered up at all the three ISM bands of 915 MHz and 2.45 GHz, with off-chip antennas, and 5.8 GHz with the integrated on-chip antenna. The tag receives its clock and the commands wirelessly through the modulated RF powering-up signal. Measurement results show that the tag can operate up to 1 Mb/s data rate with a minimum input power of -19.41 dBm at 915-MHz band, corresponding to 15.7 m of operation range with an off-chip 0-dB gain antenna. This is a great improvement compared with conventional passive RFIDs in term of data rate and operation distance. The power consumption of the chip is measured to be just 16.6 μW at the clock frequency of 10 MHz at 1.2-V supply. In addition, in this paper, for the first time, the radiation pattern of an on-chip antenna at such a frequency is measured. The measurement shows that the antenna has an almost omnidirectional radiation pattern so that the chip's performance is less direction-dependent.