In this paper, the history of RFID energy-harvesting is tracked and compared against the theoretical thermodynamic limits of an RF-to-DC converter. Although RFID harvesting technology has reached a plateau, this is only due to it being “trapped” within the paradigm of Si-CMOS devices. There are tremendous gains to be had by looking at more specialized devices, particularly those that transform energy into non-electrical, intermediate forms. Thermal intermediary (TI) devices, are particularly promising. Browse What RFID Can Teach Us…
Note: This paper was a companion to an invented talk at the IEEE WPTC 2018 conference, which did not appear in the proceedings.