Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 51, No. 2, August 2007, pp.

779784
Integration of a Passive-Type UHF RFID Tag Using
Ferroelectric Memory Technology
Hae-Chan Park, Young-Jin Son, Sung-Sil Cho, Ae-Kyoung Lee,
Baek-Hee Lee, Sanghyun Park, Yoon-Jung Kim, Ji-Hye Choi, Sung-Yeon Hwang,
Nam-Kyun Park, Heon-Yong Chang, Hee-Bok Kang, Suk-Kyoung Hong

and Sung Joo Hong

R & D Division, Hynix Semiconductor Inc., Kyoungki 467-701
(Received 9 November 2006)
We investigated a passive-type rewritable radio-frequency identication (RFID) tag operating
at the UHF (860 960 MHz) band and using ferroelectric memory (FeRAM) technology. The
transponder integrated circuit(IC) for the UHF RFID tag was implemented with 0.25-m one-poly
four-metal standard logic CMOS technology with the addition of a FeRAM and Schottky diodes.
The Pb(Zr,Ti)O
3
(PZT) capacitor array with a unit area of 1.4 1.4 m
2
for the FeRAM-embedded
RFID tag showed a remnant polarization of 30 C/cm
2
and a leakage current of 1 10
5
A/cm
2
at 3 V after full process integration. The novel ferroelectric technology utilizing a stacked capacitor
structure and a high capacitance PZT capacitor allowed a highly competitive transponder chip
size (550 550 m
2
) by reducing the area of the analogue circuit without adding any complexity
to the process integration. The PZT capacitor-based analogue circuitry showed almost the same
performance as that of conventional capacitor type circuitry. Thus, the ferroelectric memory
technology is very promising for the realization of a cost-eective, passive-type, rewritable UHF
RFID tag.
PACS numbers: 77.84.Dy, 85.50.+k, 77.80.Dj
Keywords: Radio-frequency identication, RFID, Passive transponder, Ferroelectric capacitor, FeRAM
I. INTRODUCTION
During the past few years, radio frequency identi-
cation (RFID) technology has emerged as a core for a
realization of ubiquitous society. The RFID tag consists
of a transponder IC chip and an external antenna for
communicating with a networked electromagnetic reader
or interrogator [1, 2]. For the UHF band of carrier fre-
quencies 860 960 MHz, the communication distance
between the RFID tag and the reader should be as long
as 1 meter or above. The energy received by the tag is
generally less than 60 100 W. Such an energy sup-
ply requires the function of the tag to be as simple as
possible so that its power consumption can be consid-
erably reduced. For data memory in the RFID tags,
an electrically erasable programmable read only mem-
ory (EEPROM) has mainly been used so far. However,
ferroelectric random access memory(FeRAM) is superior
to EEPROM in terms of speed, power consumption, and
endurance in the write mode. As compared with EEP-
ROM, the FeRAM write cycle time is short enough to be
ignored. The writing time of 1 byte of data on a FeRAM

E-mail: sukkyoung.hong@hynix.com; Fax: +82-2-887-6575

is less than 100 ns. The energy consumption of a FeRAM
is less 1/400 that of an EEPROM. The endurance of a
FeRAM is almost unlimited [35], and a FeRAM capaci-
tor provides the highest capacitance value (30 fF/m
2
)
for the same unit area compared to other commonly used
capacitors, such as poly-insulator-poly (PIP) capacitors
(1 fF/m
2
) and metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capaci-
tors (6.6 fF/m
2
). In addition, the FeRAM capacitor
can be simply stacked on top of the analogue circuitry
in the RFID transponder IC. Hence, if FeRAM capaci-
tors are used in analogue circuits instead of conventional
Fig. 1. Optical micrograph of the FeRAM-embedded
RFID tag chip.
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-780- Journal of the Korean Physical Society, Vol. 51, No. 2, August 2007
Table 1. Device and process features of a FeRAM-embedded UHF RFID tag.
RF interface ISO 18000-6 C-type
RF frequency 860 960 MHz
Load modulation ASK
Data rate Reder to Tag: 40 160 kbs
Tag to Reader: 40 640 kbps
Operation distance Over 4 m
Memory 512 bit FeRAM
Design rule 0.25 m
Operation voltage 2.0 V
Logic Dual gate process
Metal interconnection 4-level metal (W1, W2, W3, Al)
Ferroelectric capacitor structure Ir/IrO
2
/PZT/Pt/IrO
2
/Ir
Memory capacitor size 1.4 1.4 m
2
Fig. 2. Cross-sectional SEM micrographs of the FeRAM-embedded RFID tag chip.
PIP or MIM capacitors, the RFID tag chip size can be
signicantly reduced without adding any complexity to
the integration process. In this report, we propose a new
type of UHF RFID tag transponder IC using ferroelec-
tric memory technology to reduce the power consump-
tion and the die area.
II. EXPERIMENT
The FeRAM-embedded RFID tag in this work was
implemented using standard 0.25-m complementary
metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) logic technology
with addition of a FeRAM and schottky diodes. Some
device and process features are summarized in Table 1.
A 512-bit FeRAM was used as a data memory instead
of the conventional EEPROM. Figure 1 shows an optical
microscope image of a fully-integrated RFID transpon-
der IC chip.
Figure 2 shows cross-sectional SEM micrographs of
some circuit blocks in the FeRAM-embedded RFID
transponder IC: (a) data memory FeRAM cells, (b) dig-
ital logic circuitry, and (c) power reservoir (ferroelectric
capacitors). As is shown, the ferroelectric memory cell
is a stacked capacitor structure. The capacitor is elec-
trically connected to a bitline through a storage node
contact plug via a pass-gate transistor. The analogue
and digital logic circuits were fabricated with a standard
Integration of a Passive-Type UHF RFID Tag Using Hae-Chan Park et al. -781-
Fig. 3. Cross-sectional SEM micrograph and process sequence of the ferroelectric memory with a capacitor-over-bitline (COB)
structure for an UHF RFID transponder IC.
0.25-m logic process with Schottky diodes. To reduce
the RFID tag chip to a competitive size, we replaced
conventional capacitors, such as MOS capacitors for a
power reservoir and PIP capacitors for a voltage multi-
plier, that occupy a large Si area in the analogue circuit
block with stacked ferroelectric capacitors.
III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
1. Ferroelectric Memory
Figure 3 shows the cross-sectional SEM micrograph
and the process sequence of a ferroelectric memory ca-
pacitor for the FeRAM-embedded RFID transponder IC.
The capacitor stack was composed of Ir/IrO
2
(top elec-
trode), PZT (ferroelectric layer), and Pt/ IrO
2
/Ir (bot-
tom electrode) located directly on the TiN/W contact
plug with a TiAlN oxidation barrier. The integration
process of the stacked PZT capacitor is described in
detail elsewhere [6, 7]. Figure 4(a) shows the cumula-
tive probability curves of the plug contact resistances
for the stacked PZT capacitors measured after 600

C
annealing with dierent annealing time. The plug con-
tact resistances determined from 50 % probability of the
curves were as low as 19, 24 and 27 ohm/plug for 30-,
60- and 90-min annealing, respectively. The rise in the
plug contact resistance with increasing annealing time
was not pronounced, which indicates the robustness of
the TiAlN barrier on the TiN/W plug. Figure 4(b) shows
the current-voltage (I-V ) curves of plugs with dierent
overlap margins between the bottom electrode and the
plug. All the I-V curves show a linear behavior, indicat-
ing ohmic contact even for an overlap margin as low as
0.25 m.
Fig. 4. (a) Cumulative probability curves of the TiN/W
plug contact resistances with increased annealing time at 600

C in O
2
and (b) current-voltage curves of the plugs with
dierent overlap margins as annealed at 600

C in O
2
for 90
min.
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Fig. 5. Characteristics of a stacked PZT capacitor array:
(a) polarization-voltage curve and (b) leakage current-voltage
curve.
Fig. 6. Conventional analogue circuit block of an UHF
RFID transponder IC.
Figure 5 shows the hysteresis polarization - voltage
loop and leakage current - voltage curve for the stacked
PZT array capacitors with a top electrode area of 1.4
1.4 m
2
. The remnant polarization value (Pr) and the
leakage current density were 30 C/cm
2
and 1 10
5
A/cm
2
at an applied voltage of 3 V, respectively.
2. Analogue Circuitry
The analogue circuit block of the UHF RFID tag
transponder is shown in Figure 6. Conventional capac-
itors, such as MOS capacitors for power reservoirs and
PIP capacitors for voltage multipliers occupy a large part
of the analog circuits area. A suciently high dc sup-
ply voltage, V
DD
, of above 1.5 V with a positive supply
current, I
DD
, of above 1.5 A is generated from a weak
incident RF signal amplitude of 500 mV by using a multi-
stage charge pump with PIP capacitors. Schottky diodes
Fig. 7. Simple schematics of a multi-stage voltage multi-
plier and a reservoir capacitor: (a) PIP and MOS capacitor
and (b) ferroelectric capacitor (this work).
Fig. 8. Area reduction ratio of the analogue circuit block
when conventional MOS and PIP capacitors are replaced by
ferroelectric capacitors.
with a low series resistance of <300 Ohms and a low
junction capacitance of approximately 12 fF are used for
ecient charge pumping. The incident RF signal from
the reader is converted to a dc voltage internally and is
stored in multiple capacitors of large capacity (500 pF).
The energy stored at the reservoir capacitors provides
electrical power to all the active blocks of the analogue,
the digital controller, and the FeRAM in the transponder
IC.
Figure 7 shows simple schematics of a multi-stage volt-
age multiplier and a power reservoir composed of either
MOS and PIP capacitors or ferroelectric capacitors in
the analogue block. The large area of the analogue cir-
cuit is inevitable for the conventional capacitor scheme
due mainly to the small dielectric permittivity of 3.7
(SiO
2
) to 8 (Al
2
O
3
). On the contrary, in the case of
ferroelectric-based scheme where conventional-type ca-
pacitors are replaced by ferroelectric capacitors, the area
of the analogue circuit is small due to the large dielec-
tric permittivity of 250 (SBT) to 500 (PZT) and to the
Integration of a Passive-Type UHF RFID Tag Using Hae-Chan Park et al. -783-
Fig. 9. Test environment to evaluate the performance of the analogue circuitry of a FeRAM-embedded RFID transponder
IC.
Fig. 10. Test results of the output signals of the voltage
multiplier, the demodulator, and the clock generator in the
analogue circuitry of a FeRAM-embedded RFID transponder
IC.
stacked capacitor structure, as shown in Figure 2. In this
work, the chip area of the ferroelectric capacitor-based
RFID tag was greatly reduced to 42 % that of the con-
ventional capacitor-type RFID tag. One of the major
parameters for the area reduction of the tag IC was the
reduction of the analogue circuits area, as depicted in
Figure 8.
Figure 9 shows the test environment to evaluate the
performance of the ferroelectric-based analogue circuitry.
Figure 10 reveals the test results of the output signals of
the voltage multiplier, the demodulator, and the clock
generator in the analogue circuitry. It can be seen that
the multi-stage voltage multiplier, consisting of Schot-
tky diodes and ferroelectric capacitors, successfully con-
verted an incoming RF signal power to a dc supply volt-
age (2 V). The demodulator for converting the modu-
lated input signal to digital data and the clock generator
for generating a system clock worked well.
IV. CONCLUSION
We investigated a passive-type rewritable RFID tag
operating at the UHF (860 960 MHz) band and us-
ing ferroelectric memory (FeRAM) technology. The
transponder IC for the UHF RFID tag was implemented
by using 0.25-m one-poly four-metal standard logic
CMOS technology with a FeRAM and Schottky diodes.
A Pb(Zr,Ti)O
3
(PZT) capacitor array with a unit area
of 1.4 1.4 m
2
for the FeRAM-embedded RFID tag
showed a remnant polarization of 30 C/cm
2
and a leak-
age current of 1 10
5
A/cm
2
at 3 V after full process
integration. The novel ferroelectric technology utilizing a
stacked capacitor structure and a high-capacitance PZT
capacitor allowed a highly competitive transponder chip
size (550 550 m
2
) by reducing the analogue circuits
area without adding any complexity to the process inte-
gration. The developed PZT capacitor-based analogue
circuitry showed almost the same performance as that
with conventional capacitor-type circuitry. Thus, ferro-
electric memory technology is very promising for the re-
alization of a cost eective, passive-type, rewritable UHF
RFID tag.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was supported by the national program of
System IC 2010. SKH acknowledges MagnaChip Semi-
conductor Ltd., Sangshin Eleccom Co., and 3Alogics Inc.
for co-work with the UHF RFID tag.
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