A simplified reference proximity integrated circuit card for HF RFID

A Reference PICC (Proximity Integrated Circuit Card) is a standardized model of a card that serves as a reference device for compliance testing of commercial readers and acts as a model for commercial card's ICs (Integrated Circuits) during antenna coil optimization. A full understanding of its operation leads to designing better standard-compliant card antenna coils. We present the first analysis of all the blocks of the Reference PICC, which is composed of a rectifier, load emulation and load modulation circuits. Due to a discontinuation of a transistor used in the Reference PICC, analysis of Reference PICC becomes also necessary to choose an alternative transistor. As a result of the analysis and the any-how needed changes in the Reference PICC, we propose a simplification by presenting an alternative method for achieving load modulation.