A 3 Kbits of Low-Cost, Low-Power EEPROM Integrated Into RFID Tag Integrated Circuits Available for Bio-Consumer Electronics

Abstract

RFID has great potential for applications in integrated bio-consumer electronics such as implantable medical sensors and wearable medical devices as a bridge between bio-signal acquisition and data storage. EEPROM, an important tool for storing biometric information, has been neglected in research in related fields. This paper presents a 3 Kbits EEPROM that could be utilized for passive RFID tag ICs, developed in SMIC $0.13\mu $ m EEPROM 2P6M CMOS process, boasting a chip area of $338.28~\mu $ m ${\times } 310.78~\mu $ m. The average power consumption for read and write operations was 560 nA and $31~\mu $ A respectively, which is 62% and 6.5% lower than the current state-of-the-art literature. This paper proposes a novel reading circuit that reads data using only one simple inverter, greatly saving power consumption and area compared with the traditional readout method using operational amplifiers. Furthermore, this paper proposes a power-optimized charge pump that switches the frequency divider generated by the low-frequency clock when the voltage rises to a high voltage to reduce power consumption. To fulfill the low-cost advantage, this paper places the device under the MIM capacitor using the MIM (shd) and M4 layers to separate. Thus, it is more suitable for bio-consumer electronics from a commercial perspective.