Multi-protocol RF transceiver
First Claim
1. An apparatus comprising:
- a transmitter to transmit an outbound radio frequency (RF) signal to a device within a certain proximity from the transmitter; and
a receiver to receive an inbound RF signal from the device that is proximally located from the receiver in response to the outbound RF signal, demodulate the inbound RF signal in an analog front end, convert a demodulated signal from an analog form into a digital signal, and process the digital signal in a digital back end, the receiver including a digital signal processor (DSP) to process the digital signal, wherein the DSP includes a filter decimator to provide low-pass filtering on an oversampled data stream of the digital signal and decimation to a lower frequency, a band-pass filter coupled to receive an output signal of the filter decimator to eliminate noise and interference outside a bandwidth of the output signal of the filter decimator, a matched filter in combination with a programmable sequence generator that is programmable to accommodate multiple communication protocols to perform a protocol-specific sequence correlation computation on an output signal of the band-pass filter, a power estimator coupled to measure estimation of the correlation computation, a data slicer to recover data and a collision detector to detect collisions when collisions occur in recovering the data, in which the data slicer and the collision detector are coupled down stream from the power estimator.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A transceiver for a RFID reader and a transceiver for a RFID transponder (tag) allow communication between the two devices. The RFID reader utilizes an analog front end and a digital backend. In the receiver portion of the transceiver, the front end of the RFID reader uses a pair of down-conversion mixers to demodulate a received signal into in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) components and analog-to-digital converters (ADC) digitize the signal. A digital signal processor (DSP) in the back end processes the digital signal and uses a matched filter for data detection. The RFID tag receives an inductively coupled signal from the reader and the receiver portion of the tag uses a pulse/level detector that employs an analog comparator and a sample and hold circuit to detect the received signal. A digital decoder/controller is used to decode the incoming data and to establish a sampling clock for the pulse/level detector. An automatic gain control (AGC) circuit adjusts a receiver gain according to the received signal strength and controls tuning of magnetic coupling circuitry.
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Citations
19 Claims
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1. An apparatus comprising:
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a transmitter to transmit an outbound radio frequency (RF) signal to a device within a certain proximity from the transmitter; and a receiver to receive an inbound RF signal from the device that is proximally located from the receiver in response to the outbound RF signal, demodulate the inbound RF signal in an analog front end, convert a demodulated signal from an analog form into a digital signal, and process the digital signal in a digital back end, the receiver including a digital signal processor (DSP) to process the digital signal, wherein the DSP includes a filter decimator to provide low-pass filtering on an oversampled data stream of the digital signal and decimation to a lower frequency, a band-pass filter coupled to receive an output signal of the filter decimator to eliminate noise and interference outside a bandwidth of the output signal of the filter decimator, a matched filter in combination with a programmable sequence generator that is programmable to accommodate multiple communication protocols to perform a protocol-specific sequence correlation computation on an output signal of the band-pass filter, a power estimator coupled to measure estimation of the correlation computation, a data slicer to recover data and a collision detector to detect collisions when collisions occur in recovering the data, in which the data slicer and the collision detector are coupled down stream from the power estimator. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5)
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6. An apparatus comprising:
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an analog front end to transmit an outbound radio frequency (RF) signal to a device located within a certain proximity from the analog front end, receive an inbound RF signal from the device in response to the outbound RF signal and demodulate the inbound RF signal; an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) coupled to convert a demodulated RF signal into a digital signal; and a digital signal processor (DSP) to process the digital signal, wherein the DSP includes a filter decimator to provide low-pass filtering on an oversampled data stream of the digital signal and decimation to a lower frequency, a band-pass filter coupled to receive an output signal of the filter decimator to eliminate noise and interference outside a bandwidth of the output signal of the filter decimator, a matched filter in combination with a programmable sequence generator that is programmable to accommodate multiple communication protocols to perform a protocol-specific sequence correlation computation on an output signal of the band-pass filter, a power estimator coupled to measure estimation of the correlation computation, a data slicer to recover data and a collision detector to detect collisions when collisions occur in recovering the data, in which the data slicer and the collision detector are coupled down stream from the power estimator. - View Dependent Claims (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. A method comprising:
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transmitting an outbound radio frequency (RF) signal from a transmitter portion of an analog front end to a device located within a certain proximity from the analog front end; receiving, in a receiver portion of the analog front end, an inbound RF signal from the device that is proximally located from the analog front end in response to the outbound RF signal; demodulating the inbound RF signal by down conversion; converting the demodulated RF signal into a digital signal; and processing the digital signal using a digital signal processor (DSP) by; decimating to provide low-pass filtering on an oversampled data stream of the digital signal and decimation to a lower frequency to generate a decimated signal; band-pass filtering the decimated signal to eliminate noise and interference outside a bandwidth of the decimated signal to generate a band-pass filtered signal; filtering the band-pass filtered signal using a matched filter in combination with a programmable sequence generator that is programmable to accommodate multiple communication protocols to perform a protocol-specific sequence correlation computation; measuring estimation of the correlation computation using a power estimator; recovering data using a data slicer down stream from the power estimator; and detecting collisions using a collision detector down stream from the power estimator to detect collisions when collisions occur in recovering the data. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)
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Specification