Summary
International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation
2012
Session Number:POS2
Session:
Number:POS2-55
A Study of Cost-effective Conductive Ink for Inkjet-printed RFID Application
Pornanong Pongpaibool,
pp.-
Publication Date:2012/10/29
Online ISSN:2188-5079
Summary:
In the present day, printed electronics has become an alternative technology for reducing the size and cost of electronic products. In the printed RFID application, an electrically conductive ink is printed to conform the antenna shape of the RFID tag on a flexible substrate. The cost of an electrically conductive ink is much lower than that of the bulk conductor utilized in a conventional RFID tag. Nonetheless, an electrical conductivity of the ink is poorer which cause significant performance degradation. The addition of conductive-ink layer thickness has been introduced as an approach for improving the RFID performance, which bring about the larger ink consumption and higher tag cost. Besides, an employment of conductive ink with superior electrical conductivity can lower the amount of conductive ink required to achieve the equivalent level of performance. However, the greater the electrical conductivity, the greater the conductive ink cost. In this paper, we investigate the cost performance of the conductive ink with a variety of electrical conductivity. The optimal thickness of conductive-ink layer is evaluated for a dipole antenna and a meandered dipole antenna, common types of RFID tag antenna. The selection of conductive ink with appropriate electrical conductivity could deliver the RFID tag that has excellent performance and minimum cost.