What is a Chipless RFID Tag?

RFID tags without a silicon IC/microchip/RFID Tag IC are called Chipless RFID Tags. These tags use plastic or conductive polymers instead of silicon-based ICs. They reflect back a portion of the reader's signal with the stored identification data. The reflected signal usually has some sort of unique fingerprint that enables the reader to identify the tag and the transmitted data.

Chipless RFID tags tend to work over a wider temperature range and are also less sensitive to RF interference. These tags have started to be used in anti-counterfeiting applications and for tagging documents. The amount of information that these tags can store and transmit is limited since there is no memory chip.

A major challenge in designing chipless RFID is data encoding and transmission, as there is no IC used here. However, a number of methods are being used which provide a good level of security. This is an area within RFID which has started to get a good amount of traction. We expect there to be a lot of innovation in this area over the next few years.