MotivationNowadays there is an almost unlimited number of monitoring applications, such as structural health, logistic, security, healthcare and agriculture, which are planning to be based on a large deployment of co-operative wireless microsystems, with sensing capabilities, moving closer to the effective realization of the paradigm of the Internet of Things. The main open challenge is the reliability of maintenance-free devices, with life-time duration, especially from the energy sustainability point of view. Such systems are required to power themselves, by harvesting energy from the ambient, thus eliminating battery needs. To minimize energy requirements, wake-up radios able to be activated by signals as low as -50 dBm are already available [1]. RF/microwave energy sources are foreseen as one of the best candidates to comply with energy autonomy, either because they are widely distributed in humanized environments or because they can be efficiently provided on demand. These two different ways of providing RF energy can be referred to as RF energy harvesting (EH) and wireless power transmission (WPT), respectively. In both cases a delicate design of the RF power transfer link, consisting of the nonlinear sub-systems and the radiating elements, is required, providing that their characteristics are carefully optimized depending on the particular contest and scenario. Intensive industrial and academic activities has been devoted to this field: several and concurrent techniques and circuit solutions have been proposed and tested to ensure nonintermittent, sufficient wireless power transfer, with the lowest possible density. In this way, it is possible to comply with maximum transfer efficiency and minimum EM interference and pollution, at the same time. Typical frequencies adopted for these purposes are in the UHF and SHF bands around 400-800 MHz, for terrestrial TV signals, and around 900, 1800, 2400 and 5800 MHz, for different wireless standards: since the geometrical area to be covered are usually of the order of few meters, the devices to be powered are in the far-field region of their known or unknown RF/microwave sources. This article reviews some of the recent and promising circuit and antenna solutions and discusses reliable sub-systems adopted for receiving and transmitting subsystems, their associated radiating elements, with a focus on minimizing the power budget for enabling device operations.