A system and method is disclosed for using an input data signal as a clock signal in a state machine of a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag. An output of a demodulator in the RFID tag is directly coupled to a clock input of the command state machine in the RFID state machine. The command state machine receives an edge detect signal directly from the input data signal and then immediately generates backscatter signals to begin a backscatter process. The edge detect signal may comprise a rising edge of a data symbol of the RFID protocol. The immediate initiation of the backscatter process reduces latency of the backscatter process in the RFID state machine.