A new CMOS radio for low power RFID applications

A novel radio receiver circuit, functioning as a tuned active, detecting antenna, is described. The receiver is suggested to be part of a new radio system with the potential of competing with the range capability of active RFID-tags and, through its low power and long lifetime, with passive RFID-tags. The circuit is outlined and the functionality is verified by simulations and measurements. A 24 MHz discrete prototype showed better than -70 dBm sensitivity and 5 kHz bandwidth, with a power consumption of 102 μW. Simulations of a monolithic implementation were performed at 2.5 GHz. The detector is modeled by using 180 nm CMOS transistors. In simulations the power consumption for the detector is below 125 μW at a sensitivity of -83 dBm and a bandwidth of 9 MHz. Our conclusion is that this novel simple circuit architecture is well suited for monolithic implementation of a low power transceiver.