IMPLEMENTATION OF RFID TAGS USING

PRINTED ELECTRONICS
Karunya Christobal Lydia.S, Shruthi.P
Electrical and electronics engineering, Sri Sairam engineering college, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
karunyaselwyn18@gmail.com
shruthipandiyan11@gmail.com
ABSTRACT-Printed electronics hopes to bring an even
higher level of electronics everywhere by enabling
devices that are as inexpensive as printed paper, as
large as a billboard, and as flexible as a piece of plastic.
None of these characteristics are feasible at present with
conventional microelectronics, whether it be single
crystal silicon integrated circuits, or amorphous silicon
thin film transistor (TFT) displays. Though cost is
universally a driver for any technology, enabling
electronics to be made at the cost of printed paper
would allow for the integration of electronics on nearly
every product in existence. These electronics could
provide some intelligence to a product making our lives
better.
KEYWORDSOffset
Flexography, RFID
I.

lithography,

relatively easy to manufacture. However, concerns

with mechanical deformation of the printing form are
of concern for printed electronics where feature sizes
must be scaled, and controlled as much as possible.
Further the polymer printing form poses limitations
on the type of inks that can be printed, as inks with
organic solvents can easily cause swelling or
deterioration of the form.
A. Offset Lithography

Gravure,

INTRODUCTION

Printing means the production of printed media,

which are appraised or consumed by human beings
through their visual sense. Printed Electronics is the
manufacturing of Electronics by standard printing
processes that opens the door to a future of electronic
innovations that are lightweight, flexible, and could
be produced on inexpensive materials such as paper
or flexible film.

II.
PRINTING METHODS
There are four main printing techniques that
use a pattern master for image transfer: flexography,
lithography, gravure, and screen printing. Of these
techniques flexography, lithography, and gravure
have been considered for use in printed electronics.
Silkscreen, because it is exclusively a thick film
process was not considered here, though it enjoys
wide adoption in the manufacture of printed circuit
boards.
Flexography is essentially a rubber stamp on
a roll; of the techniques considered it operates most
similarly to Gutenbergs original printing press where
the pattern to be printed is raised out of the surface of
the printing form. This raised surface then gets inked,
and the ink is then transferred to the substrate.
Flexography has potential as a laboratory printing
technique because the rubber printing forms are

B. Direct Gravure

C. Flexography

The downside however, is that gravure rolls are very

expensive to pattern, and the patterning process is
fairly slow making gravure less ideal for print jobs
that vary a lot from day to day. Also, direct gravure is
not amenable for printing on solid substrates as
mating the printing form and the substrate is
impractical, to overcome this, offset gravure must be
utilized and a two-transfer method is used, reducing
overall resolution.
III.

Lithography, specifically offset lithography, is one of

the most widely used printing techniques, as it used
to print the majority of newspapers and short-run
periodicals in the world. It makes use of a printing
form that is patterned with hydrophobic and
hydrophilic regions. The printing form is dampened
with water which adheres only on the hydrophilic
regions, and then inked with a hydrophobic ink,
which adheres only to the hydrophobic regions of the
roll. This pattern of water and ink is then transferred
to an intermediary offset roll, and then to the
substrate where with paper substrates, the water
prevents the ink from spreading as it is absorbed by
the paper, providing good quality prints. For
electronics, the use of two types of fluids to print one
pattern poses unwanted constraints on the design of
electronic inks, issues with cross-contamination
could be difficult to control, and since most
substrates for printed electronics are non-absorbent,
the benefits of spreading control are minimal. Further
offset litho makes use of two patterns transfers, one
from the print master to offset roll, and one from the
offset roll to the substrate. This extra transfer can
lead to added loss of pattern fidelity which is
undesirable.
Gravure, also known as rotogravure, is in
some sense the inverse process of flexography. Here
patterns are etched into the surface of the printing
form, creating ink-holding wells which are filled
when the entire roll gets coated in ink. A doctor blade
then removes excess ink from the non-patterned
areas, and the ink from the wells is transferred from
to the substrate. Direct gravure provides the highest
resolution and pattern fidelity of these techniques
because it uses a metallic printing form which does
not suffer from deformation or solvent swelling.
Further, ink is transferred directly to the substrate,
avoiding the need for a secondary transfer process.
Because of the materials used in the printing form,
gravure can withstand the highest printing speeds
allowing for large numbers of prints in a short time.

RFID TAGS

D. RFID Tag Construction

Chip-based RFID tags generally consist of
three components that work together to form a
complete tag system, which is held on a supporting
substrate .First is the silicon microprocessor, which
stores information regarding the item that it is to
identify.

Second is the antenna, which may be a metal

coil, an etched metal foil, or may be printed using a
conductive ink. If an ink is used, the antenna is
printed on paper, polyester, polyimide, ABS, PVC, or
polycarbonate.
Passive RFID tags do not contain a power source.
They receive magnetic energy generated by the tag
reader through their antennas. The energy is
modulated by the chip and transmitted or
backscattered back to the reader, similar to the way
that light is reflected back from a distortion mirror; in
this case, the reader sends the light, and the tag
reflects it back modified by the tags content.
The third element is the material which the
chip and antenna are attached to or enclosed in.
Passive RFID tags do not contain a power source and
therefore must be energized by the reader. To enable
this, the tag requires very high radio signal levels that
are approximately 1000 times those used in active
RFID systems.
Tags remain detectable throughout their life,
despite the fact that there are good reasons for killing

a tag after it has served its purpose. Conversely,

certain tag applications, such as proof of item
ownership or tracing an animal, require that the tag is
always detectable.
Passive tags are relatively inexpensive, and due to
their lack of a self-contained power source, their shelf
life is almost limitless. Both passive and active tags
can be categorized into three groups:
Read Only: These are the least complex of the tag
types. Their identities are embedded into the tag
during manufacture.
Write Once, Read Many (WORM): These tags
can be written just once and that data cannot be
altered thereafter.
Read-Write: This type of tag is usually the most
expensive since data must be stored and retrieved.

E. RFID Tag Communication

RFID tags and readers communicate
wirelessly through an air interface using a process
called coupling. There are two types of coupling:
inductive and propagation.
Inductively coupled RFID tags, are those
that operate at a frequency of 125 kHz and 13.56
MHz, work similarly to a transformer, in that energy
is transferred between two coils, one in the reader,
the primary winding, and one in the tag antenna, the
secondary winding. The number of turns in the coil
and the size of the coil have a direct bearing on the
range, with more turns and a larger size equating to a
greater distance.
The accuracy of the tag reading is also
dependent on the power output by the reader, the
tags efficient power conversion of that energy, the
antennas tuning, and the microcontrollers speed and
data rate. Propagating electromagnetic waves, or
propagation coupling enables reading over a longer
distance.
Data travels through the air in the form of a
carrier wave, or rhythmically varying sinusoidal
field. The wave can be defined on the basis of three
criteria: amplitude, frequency, and phase. The values
of these criteria, which influence the modulation of
the signal, have been defined in a number of
standards. Regardless of the modulation, when data
travels through the air it is susceptible to interference,
such as other radio signals in the environment and
other forms of noise which may produce distortion
and error.
The RFID antenna is usually made of copper
or aluminum due to their resistivity; however, if the
read range is short, such as up to 10 cm, the antennas
can be printed using conductive inks. There are many
advantages to using printed antennas, such as, they:
are less expensive

can be printed using conventional printing presses

can be manufactured at high speed
can be printed on paper.

IV.

ADVANTAGES OF USING RFID

TAGS

--The growing need for information in large volumes

and at low price
Low cost
Efficient way of reproducing text and images, and
more generally identical patterns, on various
substrates, with different colours.
Capability of superimposition of very small
patterns
Possibility of producing electronic elements in-line
(smart packaging, RFID)
V.
CONCLUSION
Though Printed electronics uses the conventional
printing methods , it is complementary to both
printing and electronics field. It provides high speed
and mass production, repeatability and ultra low cost,
thus simplifying the printing methods for the ease of
human benefits.
VI.
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