EPC C1G2 Passive RFID Baseband

UHF 860MHz-960 MHz

Bhanu Singh
RFID Reader Tag Communication
 Why Power is Important

• In passive backscatter systems, the range is set by the forward link (reader-to-tag)
through the radiated power available at the tag. The goal for the design of a Gen-2
tag is to maximize read range while providing full compliance with the protocol. The
Range Equation below determines the theoretical range in which the tag will receive
adequate power levels to respond to the reader.

• Where:
• EIRP = the effective isotropic radiated power,
(≤ 4 Watts in US as Per FCC regulation)
• Panalog + Pdigital = Ptag = the power required at the tag antenna Input
• G = the tag antenna gain, and ɳ = RF to DC conversion Efficiency of Rectifier
• λ= the free-space wavelength of the RF carrier.
Interrogator to Tag Date Encoding - PIE
Link Communication
 Baseband Architecture

Power Saving through Dynamic Clock Gating using Intelligent Clock controller

PIE Decoder Rx Fsm

symbIn
Analog Front End

EEPROM
Clock Control
CRC/RNG Protocol FSM EEPROM
clkOsc Unit
I/F

symbOut
TX Encoder Tx FSM

8-bit AES-128 To be Implemented AES-128

I have uploaded Design Spec at :

http://embeddedsensors.wikispaces.com/file/detail/RFID_EPC_C1G2_DVSpec.pdf
Test Bench
 Initial Synthesis Results
• Library used – lec25reduceDff.db
• Dynamic Power – 277 µW ( Too high)
Need to do a VCD based simulation to know real Dynamic Power
• Leakage power - 55.4677nw
 Further Work - Encryption
The EPC C1G2 has a very weak security protocol. The security is based on
cover coding. To cover –code data or password the Reader first requests a
Random number from the Tag. The Interrogator then performs a bit-wise
EXOR of the data or password with this random number, and transmits this
cover coded (also called ciphertext) string to the Tag. The Tag uncovers the
data or password by performing a bitwise EXOR of the received cover-coded
string with the original random number.
Encrypted Communication

Query

Ek(R1)
Ek(ACK(R1))
Ek(PC, EPC)
Tag Reader
Ek(ReqRN(R1))
Ek(R1)
Ek(Command)