A 2-pin input multi frequency power scavenging unit for wireless sensor nodes and RFID tags

This paper presents a multi frequency power scavenging unit dedicated but not exclusively designed for supplying RFID transponders and wireless sensor nodes. The power scavenging unit converts the incoming AC power into DC power (from 1 MHz up to 2.45 GHz). The circuit is used in a fully-passive multi frequency RFID transponder according to the EPC HF and EPC Class 1 Gen 2 UHF standard and is developed in a 0.13 μm low cost CMOS technology. A new concept is utilized to combine a balanced HF and an unbalanced UHF frontend to harvest energy from the magnetic or electro-magnetic field.