The design of batteryless, TIRIS®-compliant RFID transponder IC employing TSMC 0.18μm process

An integrated circuit (IC) for a battery-less, self-powered transponder system is presented. This design conforms to the popular Texas Instruments´ TIRIS RFID (radio frequency identification) LF (low frequency of 132kHz) protocol using TSMC 0.18μm mixed signal SALICIDE (1P6M, 1.8V) process. The chip consisted of six main building blocks which are the RF (radio frequency) front end, voltage regulator, ROM (read only memory) block, digital control circuit, oscillator and a clock regenerator. The operating principle of this design offers superior performance in reading distance due to the separation of power and data transmission phases; compared to systems with continuous powering and damping modulation as reported in the literature. We illustrates function of each modules designed and the circuit design technique employed for building various blocks. The final integration of RFID transponder system is shown and the results verify that the average power dissipation is 1.8 mW (at 132 kHz, 1.8 V).