Simultaneous wireless power transfer and communication to chip-scale devices

This paper reports a 2.48 GHz tri-coil and rectifier design implemented in a system that demonstrates simultaneous wireless power transfer and communication to a 0.1 mm by 0.1 mm coil. The tri-coil link and rectifier successfully rectified and demodulated a 20 dBm amplitude-shift keyed (ASK) RF signal modulated at a rate of 1 Mb/s. Additionally, a 5.7 GHz tri-coil link was fabricated to validate the frequency scalability of this technology platform for other unlicensed bands and was measured in a customized experimental testbed to account for the effects of lateral misalignment between coils. The 5.7 GHz tri-coil design had a measured peak RF power transfer efficiency of −29 dB with a vertical separation of 1 mm, which is ten times the load coil diameter.