High-Efficiency Wideband Rectifier for Single-Chip Batteryless Active Millimeter-Wave Identification (MMID) Tag in 65-nm Bulk CMOS Technology

Abstract

This paper presents the development and demonstration of a high-efficiency rectifier for millimeter-wave-to-dc energy conversion. It is a critical circuit block that renders possible the use of a single CMOS chip die with no substrate and wiring, as the implementation of a batteryless, yet active tag for next-generation high data-rate millimeter-wave identification technologies. We also propose an architecture of a reader-tag system that addresses the underlying technical challenges. The rectifier is based on a differential drive cross-coupled topology that has been shown to work at UHF frequencies only so far. In this paper, we investigate significant challenges in implementing this topology at millimeter-wave frequencies with good power conversion efficiency (PCE). The analyses, design, and results presented in this work demonstrate the feasibility of achieving this by minimizing simultaneously the small on-resistance and the reverse leakage current in the MOS transistors, and by reducing losses and parasitic capacitances through proper transistor sizing and layout optimization. Using a standard 65-nm bulk CMOS process, a chip was designed, fabricated, and tested under different input and output loading conditions. The rectifier exhibits an overall PCE of 20% at 24 GHz, 18% at 35 GHz, and 11% at 60 GHz under RF available driving power of 6, 6, and 3 dBm, respectively, and output load resistance of 1, 1, and 2 kΩ, respectively. These PCE performances at millimeter-wave frequencies have never been reported in the literature.