Influence of the Non-Linear UHF-RFID IC Impedance on the Backscatter Abilities of a T-Match Tag Antenna Design

In ultra-high-frequency radio-frequency-identification (UHF-RFID) the conjugate complex matching of the packaged UHF-RFID transponder IC and the tag antenna structure is important to increase the reading range of the transponder tag. Quite often half-wavelength dipole-like antenna structures are used. Due to the fact that the impedances of the packaged IC and the dipole antenna structure are in different domains, a matching structure is needed to accomplish the conjugate complex matching. A common technique to carry out the matching is the so called T-match. Since the nominal input impedance of the IC depends on the applied antenna voltage (and in a strongly non-linear way), the backscatter abilities of the tag are also functions of the applied voltage. In the present work those dependencies are investigated in terms of full-wave finite element simulations and measurements.