An ultra low power digital processor for Chinese UHF RFID transponder

An ultra low power digital baseband processor for passive UHF RFID tag which is compatible with the protocol of Chinese local standard (840–845 MHz and 920–925 MHz) is presented in this paper. A highly reused register bank and a low-cost sort algorithm are proposed to minimize the power consumption and several other low power techniques are adopted, including low supply voltage, clock gating, and minimum operation frequency. The processor is fabricated in SMIC 0.18 um standard CMOS process and consumes 358 nA at 0.6 V voltage supply according to measured results and occupies only 0.1 mm2 area.