What are the manufacturing processes of RFID antennas?

　　What are the manufacturing processes of RFID antennas?

　　1. The importance of rfid antennas to RFID systems

　　Antenna is an indispensable component in the process of wireless communication. RFID uses radio waves to transmit information, and the generation and reception of radio waves need to be completed through antennas. When the electronic tag enters the working area of the reader antenna, the electronic tag antenna generates enough induction current to obtain energy and be activated. For RFID systems, antennas are a crucial part, which is closely related to the performance of the system.

　　For example, in a warehouse management project, the cost of rfid antennas accounts for less than 1% of the total cost. However, if the selection error is made for the sake of blindly reducing costs or other reasons, and poor-performing RFID antennas are selected, it is easy to encounter problems such as unstable reading, missed reading, cross-reading, and reading failure during the layout of RFID antennas. In this case, not only will the cost not be reduced, but it will increase several times. Therefore, when deploying RFID systems, it is necessary to pay attention to RFID antennas.

　　2. The three main processes for manufacturing rfid antennas

　　In order to adapt to the different requirements of RFID performance parameters in different application scenarios, various manufacturing processes for RFID antennas have emerged. At present, the most commonly used RFID antenna manufacturing processes are coil winding, etching and printing.

　　(1) Coil winding method

　　When using the coil winding method to make RFID tag antennas, the tag coil must be wound on a winding tool and fixed. The antenna coil is required to have a large number of turns. The coil can be either a circular ring or a rectangular ring. This method is generally used for RFID tags with a frequency range of 125 to 134KHz. The disadvantages of using this processing method to make antennas are obvious, which can be summarized as high cost, low production efficiency, and poor consistency of processed products.

　　(2) Etching method

　　The etching method often uses copper or aluminum to make RFID antennas. This method is similar to the etching process of flexible printed circuit boards in terms of production process. The etching method can be used to mass-produce 13.56MHz and UHF bandwidth electronic tags. It has the advantages of fine lines, low resistivity, good weather resistance, and stable signals. However, the disadvantages of this method are also obvious, such as cumbersome production procedures and low production capacity.

　　(3) Printing method

　　Printed antenna is to directly print conductive lines on an insulating substrate with conductive ink to form the antenna circuit. The main printing methods have expanded from screen printing to offset printing, flexographic printing, gravure printing and other production methods. The printing method is suitable for mass production of 13.56MHz and RFID UHF band electronic tags. Its characteristics are fast production speed, but due to the large resistance of the circuit formed by the conductive ink, its application range is subject to certain limitations. Due to the advancement of printed antenna technology, the cost of RFID tag antennas has been effectively reduced, which has promoted the popularization of RFID applications.