The three most common RFID tag antenna manufacturing processes

The three most common RFID tag antenna manufacturing processes

In the process of wireless communication, antenna is an essential component, and RFID uses radio waves to transmit information. The generation and reception of radio waves need to be realized through antenna. When the electronic tag enters the working area of the reader antenna, the electronic tag antenna will generate enough induced current to obtain energy and be activated.

For RFID system, antenna is a crucial part, which is closely related to the performance of the system.

At present, according to the differences in antenna wire material, material structure and manufacturing process, RFID tag antenna can be roughly divided into the following categories: etching antenna, printing antenna, wound antenna, addition antenna, ceramic antenna, etc. the most commonly used antenna manufacturing process is the first three.

Etching method

The etching method, also known as the printing corrosion method, first covers a layer of copper or aluminum with a thickness of about 20mm on a base carrier, and then makes a screen printing plate of antenna positive diagram. The resist is printed on the surface of copper or aluminum by screen printing, so as to protect the copper or aluminum below from corrosion, and the rest is dissolved by the corrosive.

However, due to the chemical erosion reaction used in the etching process, there are problems of long process flow and many waste water, which is easy to pollute the environment. Therefore, the industry has been trying to find a better alternative.

Printed antenna

The antenna circuit is directly printed or printed on the substrate with special conductive ink or silver paste. The more mature is gravure printing or silk screen printing. Screen printing saves the cost to a certain extent, but its ink adopts about 70% conductive silver paste with high silver content to obtain an antenna between 15 ~ 20um. It belongs to thick film printing and has high cost.

Coil wound antenna

The manufacturing process of copper wire wound RFID tag antenna is usually completed by automatic winding machine, that is, the insulating paint is directly wound on the base carrier film, and the copper wire with low melting point paint is used as the substrate of RFID tag antenna. Finally, the wire and substrate are mechanically fixed with adhesive, and certain wires are wound according to different frequency requirements