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Technical Note

Miniaturized On-Chip NFC Antenna versus Screen-Printed Antenna for the Flexible Disposable Sensor Strips

Silicon Austria Labs GmbH, Europastrasse 12, 9524 Villach, Austria
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Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
IoT 2020, 1(2), 309-319; https://doi.org/10.3390/iot1020018
Submission received: 13 October 2020 / Revised: 22 October 2020 / Accepted: 27 October 2020 / Published: 28 October 2020

Abstract

With the ongoing trend toward miniaturization via system-on-chip (SoC), both radio-frequency (RF) SoCs and on-chip multi-sensory systems are gaining significance. This paper compares the inductance of a miniaturized on-chip near field communication (NFC) antenna versus the conventional screen-printed on-substrate ones that have been used for the transfer of sensory data from a chip to a cell phone reader. Furthermore, the transferred power efficiency in a coupled NFC system is calculated for various chip coil geometries and the results are compared. The proposed NFC antenna was fabricated via a lithography process for an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chip. The chip had a small area of 2.4 × 2.4 mm2, therefore a miniaturized NFC antenna was designed, whereas the screen-printed on-substrate antennas had an area of 35 × 51 mm2. This paper investigates the effects of different parameters such as conductor thickness and materials, double layering, and employing ferrite layers with different thicknesses on the performance of the on-chip antennas using full-wave simulations. The presence of a ferrite layer to increase the inductance of the antenna and mitigate the interactions with backplates has proven useful. The best performance was obtained via double-layering of the coils, which was similar to on-substrate antennas, while a size reduction of 99.68% was gained. Consequently, the coupling factors and maximum achievable power transmission efficiency of the on-chip antenna and on-substrate antenna were studied and compared.
Keywords: NFC antenna; ferrite; on-chip antenna; internet of things NFC antenna; ferrite; on-chip antenna; internet of things

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MDPI and ACS Style

Kordzadeh, A.; Holzmann, D.; Binder, A.; Moldaschl, T.; Sturm, J.; Roshanghias, A. Miniaturized On-Chip NFC Antenna versus Screen-Printed Antenna for the Flexible Disposable Sensor Strips. IoT 2020, 1, 309-319. https://doi.org/10.3390/iot1020018

AMA Style

Kordzadeh A, Holzmann D, Binder A, Moldaschl T, Sturm J, Roshanghias A. Miniaturized On-Chip NFC Antenna versus Screen-Printed Antenna for the Flexible Disposable Sensor Strips. IoT. 2020; 1(2):309-319. https://doi.org/10.3390/iot1020018

Chicago/Turabian Style

Kordzadeh, Atefeh, Dominik Holzmann, Alfred Binder, Thomas Moldaschl, Johannes Sturm, and Ali Roshanghias. 2020. "Miniaturized On-Chip NFC Antenna versus Screen-Printed Antenna for the Flexible Disposable Sensor Strips" IoT 1, no. 2: 309-319. https://doi.org/10.3390/iot1020018

APA Style

Kordzadeh, A., Holzmann, D., Binder, A., Moldaschl, T., Sturm, J., & Roshanghias, A. (2020). Miniaturized On-Chip NFC Antenna versus Screen-Printed Antenna for the Flexible Disposable Sensor Strips. IoT, 1(2), 309-319. https://doi.org/10.3390/iot1020018

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