This paper investigates the potential of reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) for passive information transfer in a RIS-aided multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system. We propose a novel simultaneous active and passive information transfer (SAPIT) scheme. In SAPIT, the transmitter (Tx) and the RIS deliver information simultaneously, where the RIS information is carried through the RIS phase shifts embedded in reflected signals. We introduce the coded modulation technique at the Tx and the RIS. The main challenge of the SAPIT scheme is to simultaneously detect the Tx signals and the RIS phase coefficients at the receiver. To address this challenge, we introduce appropriate auxiliary variables to convert the original signal model into two linear models with respect to the Tx signals and one entry-by-entry bilinear model with respect to the RIS phase coefficients. With this auxiliary signal model, we develop a message-passing-based receiver algorithm. Furthermore, we analyze the fundamental performance limit of the proposed SAPIT-MIMO transceiver. Notably, we establish the state evolution to predict the receiver performance in a large-size system. We further analyze the achievable rates of the Tx and the RIS, which provides insight into the code design for sum-rate maximization. Numerical results validate our analysis and show that the SAPIT scheme outperforms the passive beamforming counterpart in achievable sum rate of the Tx and the RIS.

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