Several key issues in single-chip UHF RFID reader design

Several key issues including system noise figure, input linearity, LO phase noise performance and transceiver setting-up time are recapitulated in this paper for the design of single-chip UHF RFID reader. The reader Rx noise figure is different between LBT and normal mode. The input linearity is decided by the maximum interferer due to Tx-to-Rx leakage. Phase noise requirements are to meet with Tx transmission spectrum mask, and withhold adjacent interferer and in-band self-jammer. The transceiver setting-up time is determined by the larger value between frequency synthesizer switching time and DC-offset removal time. A low-power low-cost single-chip 0.18μm CMOS UHF RFID reader transceiver is verified based on the foregoing analyses.