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Battery-less NFC/RFID Temperature Sensing Patch

reza fard
Prodigy 30 points

Other Parts Discussed in Thread: RF430FRL152H, RF430FRL152HEVM

Hello,

I used the Gerber files and the BOM provided on the TI website to build a few prototypes of battery-less NFC temperature sensor. But I couldn't have them work. I'm wondering if anybody can help me to understand how to debug it. Here's the problem:

I used the "TRF7970AEVM board and TRF7970EVM GUI interface" to read the temperature from the battery-less temp sensor. It wasn't successful and I got this error message: "could not read from the device". I was suspicious that the reason for the error message was that the RF430FRL152H chip on my prototype was not programmed. (I couldn't find any document explaining how to program the chip on the air). To make sure that I was right, I took off the RF430FRL152H chip from a RF430FRL152HEVM board that I bought from TI, and soldered it on my prototyped PCBs. The result: the prototype worked perfectly. Therefore my conclusion was that the reason for the error messages was that the RF430 chip was not programmed.  I appreciate if anybody could give me advice or refer me to a document on how to program the chip on the air.

Thanks,

Reza

  • 0
    TI__Expert 7820 points
    Reza,

    The RF430FRL152H chips that are sold do have the programming necessary for them to work. We have made thousands of the battery-less PCBs and we do not program them.
    You say that you used the TRF7970AEVM GUI interface to attempt to communicate with the chip. However the error message that you mention seems to be more from the RF430FRL152HEVM GUI. Either should work, but the TRF7970AEVM GUI will not be able to write to the tag unless the ISO15693 block length is changed.
    It is possible to program the RF430FRL152H over-the-air. However in your case you are not able to read using RF due to the error that you are receiving, over the air programming would not be possible.
    The only reason that may have caused the devices to lose their programming is excessive heat, since FRAM is sensitive to that.

    If you have the time, you can confirm if the parts did not have the correct program. I would be interested in that. What you can do is solder the non-working chip to the RF430 EVM. Then using IAR, with a blank RF430FRL152H project, connect to the EVM by selecting "Debug without downloading". If you navigate to the memory area of 0xFFFF and get a screenshot of the memory in that region we could compare to what it should be and determine the nature of the problem. If you would do this don't connect using CSS and don't "Download and debug" using IAR (since it reprograms the FRAM).