A 45nm CMOS near-field communication radio with 0.15A/m RX sensitivity and 4mA current consumption in card emulation mode

Abstract

Near Field Communication (NFC) is an emerging technology that is penetrating the mobile phone market rapidly. Compliance to multiple NFC standards [1-3] requires designs to support wide dynamic range of field (0.15 to 12A/m), multiple data rates (1.65 to 848Kb/s), various modulation transition times (0.01 to 8usec), wide range of modulation indices (8 to 100%) and line coding techniques (Manchester, NRZ, Modified Miller and PPM). Also, support for small antenna size and very low power card emulation (tag) operation results in additional design constraints. The solution described here integrates all the NFC functions on a multi-IP connectivity SOC in 45nm CMOS. © 2013 IEEE.