A design automation and power estimation flow for RFID systems

ABSTRACT

While RFID has become a ubiquitous technology, there is still a need for RFID systems with different capabilities, protocols, and features depending on the application. This article describes a design automation flow and power estimation technique for fast implementation and design feedback of new RFID systems. Physical layer features are described using waveform features, which are used to automatically generate physical layer encoding and decoding hardware blocks. RFID primitives to be supported by the tag are enumerated with RFID macros and the behavior of each primitive is specified using ANSI-C within the template to automatically generate the tag controller. Case studies implementing widely used standards such as ISO 18000 Part 7 and ISO 18000 Part 6C using this automation technique are presented. The power macromodeling flow demonstrated here is shown to be within 5% to 10% accuracy, while providing results 100 times faster than traditional methods. When eliminating the need for certain features of ISO 18000 Part 6C, the design flow shows that the power required by the implementation is reduced by nearly 50%.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  B. Hardware
  B.8 Performance and Reliability
      B.8.2 Performance Analysis and Design Aids

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Standardization, Verification

Keywords:
RFID, design automation, low-power, prototyping