Walther Pachler

Secured miniaturized system-in-package contactless and passive authentication devices featuring NFC

Abstract RFID/NFC technology is widely spread nowadays and applications can be found in our everyday life, for example, in payment, transportation, logistics, healthcare, and access control. State-of-the-art contactless and passive authentication solutions implement relatively large coils outside of the chip. Therefore, the minimum size is in the order of a few square centimeters, which limits their use for tagging of certain small-sized goods. On top of that, those miniaturized solutions which are available today provide only limited security measures. Here we introduce miniaturized system-in-package contactless authentication devices. This novel solution integrates Infineon Technologies’ CIPURSE TM move IC, which is a state-of-the-art security solution featuring an open security standard, into embedded Wafer Level Ball Grid Array (eWLB) packages, together with HF-antennas, ferrites, as well as discrete elements that improve HF-coupling characteristics. The presented devices provide better HF-coupling characteristics than Coil-on-Chip approaches, which also enable verification of authenticity of tagged products through NFC-enabled smart phones. Thanks to the miniaturized package sizes of 3 × 3 mm, integration into high-priced products, casings, consumable materials, etc., can be achieved in a discreet way. Furthermore, the integrated CIPURSE TM chip enables not only the anti-counterfeiting use-case, but also micropayment, ticketing, access control, and password storage in a secured way. Therefore, this miniaturized contactless authentication solution will open up whole new fields of applications.