PROJECT TITLE :

Low-Power Injection-Locked Zero-IF Self-Oscillating Mixer for High Gbit/s Data-Rate Battery-Free Active Tag at Millimeter-Wave Frequencies in 65-nm CMOS

ABSTRACT:

In this paper, a low-power zero-IF self-oscillating mixer (SOM) for a brand new generation of high data-rate battery-free, nonetheless active μRFID tag (a absolutely integrated RF identification tag on a single CMOS die with no external components, nor packaging) operating at millimeter-wave frequencies is proposed and demonstrated. It exploits, on one hand, the intrinsic mixing properties of an LC cross-coupled voltage-controlled oscillator, and on the other hand, the injection-locking properties in oscillators. By injection locking the SOM's natural oscillation frequency to the reader's carrier frequency (a frequency that bears data of the tag: reader-to-tag Communication), it permits a right away-conversion to the baseband with no external native oscillator (LO) supply (self-mixing), nor RF frequency conversion into IF frequency, therefore considerably reducing its power consumption. Up-link communication (tag-to-reader communication) is performed by up-converting the tag's data using the same SOM. Furthermore, the in-section injected energy stabilizes the self-generated LO and enhances the SOM section noise, ensuing into a coffee-phase noise baseband signal. Using a normal 65-nm CMOS method, a forty-GHz zero-IF SOM was designed, fabricated, and tested. Experimental results exhibit a conversion loss of regarding thirty dB below -thirty eight-dBm injected RF power with a power consumption of only 280 μW during reader-to-tag communication, and 580 μW during tag-to-reader communication.