A Low-Noise and Fast-Settling UHF RFID Receiver with Digitally Controlled Leakage Cancellation

UHF RFID reader suffers from a strong transmitter (Tx) leakage signal coupled to a receiver (Rx), especially for an area-compact single-antenna implementation. Then, several Tx leakage cancellation schemes have been developed not to saturate the Rx and to minimize the performance degradation. This brief proposes a UHF RFID reader Rx with a low noise performance and a fast settling time by employing a digitally controlled leakage cancellation method in both passive and active realizations. A digitally-controlled passive vector reflector enhances the Tx to Rx isolation ratio by providing the optimum load impedance. An active anti-leakage feedback loop adaptively tracks the time-varying leakage and generate the phase-inverted leakage replica to suppress the leakage. The prototype chip is fabricated in a CMOS 55 nm process and the area of the chip is 2.1 mm 1.8 mm. The passive leakage cancellation (PLC) with a vector reflector endures the 1 dBm leakage with a low Rx noise figure of 12.5 dB and 35.7 mW power consumption. The active leakage cancellation (ALC) with an anti-leakage feedback loop covers 6 dBm leakage with a fast settling time of 4.6 s and 58 mW power consumption.