Touchscreen tags based on thin-film electronics for the Internet of Everything

Abstract

Capacitive touchscreens are increasingly widespread, featuring in mobile phones and tablets, as well as everyday objects such as cars and home appliances. As a result, the interfaces are uniquely placed to provide a means of communication in the era of the Internet of Everything. Here, we show that commercial touchscreens can be used as reader interfaces for capacitive coupled data transfer. The transfer of data to the touchscreen is achieved using a 12 bit thin-film capacitive radio-frequency identification tag powered by a thin-film battery or a thin-film photovoltaic cell that converts light from the screen. The thin-film integrated circuit has a 0.8 cm2 on-chip monolithic antenna, employs 439 transistors and dissipates only 31 nW of power at a supply voltage of 600 mV. The chip has an asynchronous data rate of up to 36 bps, which is limited by the touchscreen readout electronics. Commercial touchscreens can serve as a reader interface for capacitive coupled data transfer using identification tags that are fabricated with thin-film transistor technology and powered by thin-film photovoltaic cells that convert light from the touchscreens.

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Papadopoulos, N., Qiu, W., Ameys, M. et al. Touchscreen tags based on thin-film electronics for the Internet of Everything. Nat Electron 2, 606–611 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-019-0333-z

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