A UHF band wireless identification system based on passive surface acoustic wave(SAW) devices is presented in this paper. SAW ID tags were fabricated on Y-Z $LiNbO_3$ piezoelectric substrate with a good electro-mechanical coupling property. To reduce degradation of the antenna performance associated with the piezoelectric materials, an efficient design of the SAW RFID antenna is introduced. By measuring the parameters of the SAW ID tag, the performance of the antenna was tested by experimentation.