by Adi Tedjasaputra

From the recent comments and statements, it seems like technology agnostic is the latest trend in the RFID industry. The RFID industry has become more sophisticated and provided more values from RFID technology.


Read the following comments and statements:

"... truly frequency agnostic company" (UK)

"... frequency agnostic – write tags at HF and UHF frequencies" (USA)

"... tag agnostic (Gen 1 & Gen 2)" (USA)

"... reader agnostic ..." (USA)

"... technology and frequency agnostic. Our main objective is to ensure that we have common data structures and command sets to make it easier and less costly to implement." (President of EPCglobal)

"... frequency agnostic, advocating that the optimal tag should be used for various applications" (UK)

"... will develop new RFID solutions with a frequency agnostic approach, as wireless frequency ranges are assessed and recommended based on the exact needs of the individual application." (Netherlands)

The use of the word "agnostic" itself is a kind of stretch from the original meaning that comes from the Greek words of "a" (not) and "gnostos" (known), which literally means unknown. A person who believes in neither God's existence nor God's non-existence can be called an agnostic. If you have no commitment in an opinion, you can also be called an agnostic.

The earliest account of the word "agnostic" in use within the RFID industry dates back to May 2006, when EPCglobal started to look into HF RFID technology and formed HF Air Interface Working Group.

"EPCglobal is happy to begin work on extending the very successful EPCglobal Gen 2 standard to support the healthcare industry" said Chris Adcock, president of EPCglobal. "EPCglobal is technology and frequency agnostic. Our main objective is to ensure that we have common data structures and command sets to make it easier and less costly to implement."

The statement came out after a reality check of UHF technology performance on item-level tagging in the pharmaceutical supply chain. The result is clear: HF technology performs better than UHF technology for item-level tagging in the pharmaceutical supply chain. This harsh reality has forced EPCglobal, who has been very aggressive in promoting UHF technology, to embrace HF technology rather than ignoring the global pharmaceutical industry worth of US$492 billion, in which the United States has become the major market for drugs, accounting for almost half of all global drug sales (*).

So now, EPCglobal is officially technology and frequency agnostic.

In the real world, each application usually has its own unique needs. RFID systems designed for Access Control applications may not easily be adapted for Supply Chain Logistics applications. RFID systems working for Supply Chain Logistics may not give an optimal performance for Retail Logistics applications. Even for the same area of applications, as demonstrated in the pharmaceutical supply chain, the unique environment, different standards and regulations have made RFID applications more complicated. This reality has created an awareness in the RFID industry that one size does not fit all.

On the other hand, some RFID vendors that always follow the latest fads are a little bit carried away. They have stretched the use of the word "agnostic" even further. The stretch ranges from support for dual frequency equipments to anything under the sun that operates on frequency, i.e. tag agnostic, reader agnostic, etc. At one extreme, some RFID vendors are racing to produce RFID products that support multi-spectral RFID applications. At another extreme, some vendors who are cautious with multi-spectral RFID products only recommend specific frequency solutions based on the assessment of each individual RFID application and call their approach frequency agnostic.

While both extremes propose different values to different markets, these agnostic phenomena have shown an important trend, i.e. The RFID industry has become more sophisticated and provided more values from RFID technology.

Yet, a question remains: Has the RFID market become more mature during the course of time?

(*) Industrial Surveys, Global Pharmaceuticals, reportSURE, December 2004).


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Labels: epcglobal, reader, rfid, scm, tag, technology

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by Adi Tedjasaputra

With more organisations are considering the use of RFID network technology, it is time to enhance the RFID network security measures. The Internet seems to be invented just yesterday. It comes as no surprise to many people because the recent statistics show that the total worldwide internet usage penetration was only 16.6% by January 11, 2007. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the impact of the Internet on society has become more significant with the 202.9% growth of Internet usage since the year 2000. On the other hand, the Internet of Things, with RFID technology as its key enabler, has only started to become headlines for the past few years. One of the the most popular RFID networks is EPCglobal Network.

The heart of EPCglobal Network lies in the component or service called Object Naming Service (ONS) Root, as it was originally designed to anticipate the use of Electronic Product Code (EPC). The design of ONS Root is not completely new, because it is actually derived from the design of Domain Name System (DNS) Root.

The main similarity between ONS Root and DNS Root is the way they both return requests of data that are available in other servers, but not their own servers. DNS Root will return requests for root namespace domain with corresponding Top-level Domain (TLD) nameservers. ONS Root, in comparison, will return the network address of services where the corresponding data of the EPC in request is stored.

The benefits of not re-inventing the wheel, familiarity and easier implementation are naturally the strengths of the EPCglobal network, due to the experience with the Internet infrastructure. However, these benefits also come with some weaknesses. One of the weaknesses is the vulnerability of the ONS Root to Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks, inherited from DNS Root.

In the Internet history, there were only two significant incidents recorded on DoS attacks to DNS Root servers, i.e. in 2002 and recently on February 2007. The worst impacts on DoS attacks to DNS Root servers in 2002 were the malfunction of 9 DNS Root servers from 13 servers spread geographically across the globe. The recent attack in February 2007 has resulted in two badly suffered servers and others saw heavy traffic (Wikipedia, DNS Backbone DDoS Attacks). These attacks, however, have provided some insights to one of the main risks in adopting EPCglobal network, i.e. security.

With the current total worldwide internet usage penetration of only about 16.6%, it is already difficult to imagine some major changes to the Internet infrastructure and cope with DoS attacks. Some efforts such as local data caching, server power and bandwidth improvement can only alleviate the impacts of such attacks on DNS Root servers. Egress filtering can significantly prevent from such attacks only when the use is widespread, at the expense of inconvenience for false positive traffic identification and additional measures. There is currently no silver bullet for DoS attacks.

EPCglobal Network, by design, is also susceptible to DoS attacks. Using similar mechanism with DNS in resolving EPC data requests, the ONS Root servers become vulnerable to DoS attacks. Any organisation planning to embark on EPCglobal Network will cringe finding out that the EPCglobal Network infrastructure inherits security weaknesses similar to DNS'.

While it is already difficult for changing the Internet infrastructure with only 16.6% penetration rate, there is still a hope for EPCglobal Network. Different from the Internet infrastructure, the development of ubiquitous RFID networks and sensors, including EPCglobal Network, is still in a very early stage. This state of affairs has provided a second change to design a secure and robust RFID network and sensor infrastructure that can have a significant impact for the worldwide society in the future, especially when it is no longer the Internet of Things, but also the Internet of People.

The writer is the Founder of RFID Asia - The Prominent RFID Community in Asia.


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Labels: epcglobal, ons, rfid, security, technology

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by Adi Tedjasaputra

This is the time of the year when we start reading and listening to RFID technology yearly forecasts and slogans such as 1.71 billion tags will be sold, the total RFID market will be $4.96 billion, RFID will change everyday life, RFID is here to stay, 5-cent RFID tag has arrived, etc. The similar things we heard last year, or probably for the past several years, from those who try to sell reports and events in a quiet month.

Don't get me wrong – I applaud the work of credible people and organisations to disseminate knowledge around RFID technology and promote RFID business - but we need to understand that any change or transformation in the real world is evolutionary. There is no such thing as RFID revolution or RFID magic.

Forecasts are probably good to give a sense of direction and motivation, but the real change or transformation lies in wise actions. RFID players who are not aware of this reality have tasted some loss or about to find out the harsh reality of the RFID industry. VeriChip has had a slow sales and its stock has been struggling since its initial public offering. U.S. Homeland Security is abandoning the plans for using RFID tags. EPCglobal Gen 2 UHF tag has failed to meet its 5-cent tag vision. Wal-Mart is yet to succeed in reducing labour and inventory costs using RFID technology.

RFID technology is now at the Slope of Enlightenment in the sense of Gartner's Hype Cycle. RFID community has just started the process of understanding the benefits of practical RFID applications. There is a huge need to bridge RFID knowledge gap and find the right partners for the right RFID projects and applications, particularly in Asia. The emerging markets in Asia, such as Indonesia, have started to show some active signs and enthusiasms.

In the beginning of the new year, I would like to use the opportunity to thank all the RFID Asia Community Members for your continuous support and active participation.

Have a Wireless and Prosperous Lunar New Year.


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Labels: business, epcglobal, indonesia, rfid, security, tag, technology

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by Adi Tedjasaputra

The aggressive marketing campaign for RFID standards led by EPCglobal has been successful. At least, many who have heard about RFID, most likely have also heard about Electronic Product Code (EPC), EPCglobal standards or EPCglobal. Some even falsely identify RFID with EPC. There is no doubt that the EPC branding is in the mind of many people, for better or for worse.

5-Cent RFID Tags
Ideally, a marketing power should come with a responsibility to fulfil promises advertised in the marketing campaign. Unfortunately, in the real world, promises do not always come true in time and people often get disappointed, and sometimes confused and frustrated.

How many times have you heard or read people talk about 5-cent RFID tags?

Here, instead of discussing whether the 5-cent tag is a myth or a feasible vision, it is necessary to point out that 5-cent price target was originally introduced by Sanjay Sarma and his colleagues, who are also involved in the development of EPC. Riding the 5-cent buzz, EPC, a unique numbering scheme endorsed by EPCglobal, has gained popularity in the recent years, at the expense of RFID technology and industry in general.

We quickly determined that if RFID tags were ever going to have a shot at being widely used, a 5-cent price target was important for both psychological and commercial reasons. In return, though, the volumes would have to be very high—for example, more than 5 billion bar codes are scanned daily today. The problem with RFID tags at the time was that the industry was "stuck" in a higher-margin, lower-volume mind-set. At the Auto-ID Center, we set about flipping it to a high-volume, low-margin approach. (Integrating RFID, Sanjay Sarma, ACM Queue vol. 2, no. 7 - October 2004)

There is no doubt when Sanja Sarma and his colleagues envisioned 5-cent RFID tags, they were comparing RFID tags with barcode labels and referring only to retail supply chain item tagging, instead of the general RFID tags and applications.

Nevertheless, when the news of 5-cent RFID tags was published in the media, many became excited and over-enthusiastic. Some unrealistic expectations started to be unfolded. Many people easily forget or ignore the underlying assumption that an initial large volume purchase is necessary to achieve the 5-cent RFID tag vision.

Is Gen 2 the Silver Bullet?
Realising the shortcomings of the Class 0 and Class 1 UHF Air Interface Protocol Standard, EPCglobal began its work on the second generation of UHF air interface protocol mostly known as Gen 2. The standard was later ratified by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) last year.

When EPCglobal later realised that the strengths of UHF RFID technology comes with its weaknesses and limitations, the organization started to look into HF RFID technology and formed HF Air Interface Working Group. The Working Group currently works toward the extension of Gen 2 into HF band.

The less known facts are actually the cost for involvement in the EPCglobal and the cost of adopting EPCglobal standards. If you are an end user, you have to pay at least US$750 (EPCglobal North America) for the initial subscription fee, in addition to other fees. Solution providers will have to pay more. The subscription fee schedule for companies outside the United States is less transparent, but since EPCglobal is a joint-venture between GS1 and GS1 US, one may expect similar fees to be collected as well.

Beside the high organisational and infrastructure costs, the design of current Gen 2 protocol standard ironically does not reflect any breakthrough towards the vision of 5-cent RFID tags, especially with added security feature extensions for RFID Supply Chain item-level tagging that will increase the total tag manufacturing cost.

The result of unrealistic expectations is predictable: disappointment. RFID vendors will fail to meet unrealistic expectations already generated by aggressive and unrealistic marketing campaign, including the demand for 5-cent tags. RFID technology and industry will get more bad press, in addition to the current opposition from already flourishing privacy groups. Wait-and-see attitude towards RFID implementations will become more common among potential RFID adopters, including the ones outside the retail supply chain industry. The expectation of large volume purchase that can decrease general RFID tag price will happen in a very slow pace, along with various setbacks.

Fortunately, there are hundreds of RFID applications that are independent from the need to adopt EPCglobal standards. These RFID applications are primarily unrelated to the supply chain industry. Nevertheless, we still urgently need a healthy dosage of marketing campaign that is balanced with rational and realistic expectations and actions to move beyond the current hype. We need to prevent one drop of indigo to stain the whole cauldron of milk (*).

(*) "One drop of indigo stains the whole cauldron of milk" is an Indonesian proverb that means one minor ill behaviour can ruin the whole good things or efforts.


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Labels: 2.0, epc, epcglobal, iso, privacy, rfid, scm, security, tag, technology

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Edited Press Release.

OMRON Corporation announced availability of the V750 series Gen2 Global Loop inlay which can be used under North American, European and Japanese radio frequency bands in a single tag design. Aimed at consumer electronics manufacturers and suppliers to major retailers, the new inlay will be ready for shipment from early August 2006.

The Gen2 Loop is optimized to ensure robust read performance when the tag is applied to items containing materials unfriendly to RFID, for example, the metallic components used in electronics equipment and products with high moisture content. With non-metallic objects, the Gen2 Loop realizes the same high read performance as the Class 1 Loop inlay currently available from OMRON (see Figure 1 below).In addition, the new inlay delivers a read performance of approximately 1 meter even when in close proximity to metal objects (see Figure 2 below). The Loop tag also delivers reliable read ranges when the orientation on the product is not fixed or could change after application. As a direct result, the Loop inlay can improve pallet tag read rates.

OMRON Gen2 global loop inlays can be used with all international UHF RFID frequencies from 860 to 960MHz with little or no performance degradation. The addition of the Global Loop inlay to the already announced Wave tag expands OMRON's ability to meet a wide range of applications for today's international supply chain needs. Potential applications of the new inlay include tags and labels for use in the electrical appliance and pharmaceutical industries, where the ability to read large shipments of products speedily, simultaneously and from a distance will realize significant cost reductions.

"With RFID deployments expanding both globally and to a wider range of SKU's, a global tag that performs across all UHF frequency bands and is less sensitive to materials and orientation is clearly a benefit for our customers," says Bill Arnold, chief strategist at OMRON RFID. "If a company uses the OMRON global inlay, then it has no need to handle the complexity of different tag selection for each region or SKU requirements. This means our Gen2 global loop inlays help to reduce total RFID tag application costs and operation time."

Table 1
Model   V750-D22M02-IM
Minimum delivery lot   5000 pcs/roll
Inlay price   Open price
Protocol   EPCglobal Class 1 Generation 2
Operating frequencyUHF band: 860MHz to 960MHz (Japan, U.S., Europe, China, Asia, etc.)
Memory   240 bits NVM(EPC: 96 bits)
Dimensions   68mm×70mm
Operating temperature   -20˚C to 55˚C (no icing, no condensation)
Storage temperature   -20˚C to 55˚C (no icing, no condensation)
Storage humidity (maximum)   60% RH

External view of V750 Series Gen2 Loop Inlay




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Labels: china, epcglobal, gen2, inlay, japan, omron, rfid, scm, tag, technology

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Edited News Release.

Ontario ’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, Dr. Ann Cavoukian, yesterday released privacy Guidelines for the growing field of radio frequency identification (RFID).

These Guidelines flow from her earlier work in 2003 when the Commissioner first identified the potential privacy concerns raised by RFID technology. Following a history of ground-breaking work on building privacy into the design of emerging technologies, these Guidelines are a natural progression of this pragmatic approach.

“I have always found it beneficial to assist those working on emerging technologies, and to be proactive whenever possible – to develop effective guidelines and codes before any problems arise,” said Commissioner Cavoukian. “These made-in-Canada Guidelines provide guidance and solutions regarding item-level consumer RFID applications and uses.”

EPCglobal Canada, an industry association that sets standards for electronic product codes, has been collaborating with the IPC in the development of these Guidelines, and will be seeking Board approval by its member companies to signify the association’s endorsement of the Guidelines.

“ This technology offers exciting benefits to consumers and businesses alike. As the trusted source for driving adoption of EPC/RFID technology for increased visibility within the supply chain, privacy is as important as anything else we are doing,” said Art Smith, President and CEO, EPCglobal Canada. “We promote an environment that encourages ongoing innovation while respecting privacy issues.”

RFID tags contain microchips and tiny radio antennas that can be attached to products. They transmit a unique identifying number to an electronic reader, which in turn links to a computer database where information about the item is stored. RFID tags may be read from a distance quickly and easily, making them valuable for managing inventory but pose potential risks to privacy if linked to personal identifiers. RFID tags are the next generation technology from barcodes.

Although RFID technology deployed in the supply chain management process poses little threat to privacy, item-level use of RFID tags in the retail sector, when linked to personally identifiable information, can facilitate the tracking and surveillance of individuals. The goal of these Guidelines is to alleviate concerns about the potential threat to privacy posed by this technology and to enhance openness and transparency about item-level use of RFID systems by retailers.

The Guidelines address key privacy issues regarding the use of RFID technology at an item-level in the retail sector, said Commissioner Cavoukian.

The Guidelines are based on three overarching principles, including:

* Focus on RFID information systems, not technologies: The problem does not lie with RFID technologies themselves, but rather, the way in which they are deployed that can have privacy implications. The Guidelines should be applied to RFID information systems as a whole, rather than to any single technology component or function;

* Build in privacy and security from the outset – at the design stage: Just as privacy concerns must be identified in a broad and systemic manner, so, too, must the technological solutions be addressed systemically. A thorough privacy impact assessment is critical. Users of RFID technologies and information systems should address the privacy and security issues early in the design stages, with a particular emphasis on data minimization. This means that wherever possible, efforts should be made to minimize the identifiability, observability and linkability of RFID data; and

* Maximize individual participation and consent : Use of RFID information systems should be as open and transparent as possible, and afford individuals with as much opportunity as possible to participate and make informed decisions.

A companion piece to the Guidelines – Practical Tips for Implementing RFID Privacy Guidelines, is also being released by the Commissioner to help organizations put the Guidelines into practice.


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Labels: antenna, business, epcglobal, privacy, reader, rfid, scm, security, tag, technology, tracking

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The promise of EPCglobal RFID standardisation and regulatory efforts to reduce the cost and complexity of RFID system integration is still far from reality, especially in Asia.

As an exclusive industry-driven group, EPCglobal Inc has an interest to push its own proprietary standard as a global standard for the benefit of its members. Despite of its emerging role in defining the roadmap for RFID standardisation in the Asian continent, the organisation has not yet succeeded to lobby the Chinese Government for adopting the EPCglobal's UHF Electronic Product Code (EPC) standards as its national standard. There is no official account on the EPCglobal's standardisation hardship in China, but it is widely known among the Chinese RFID players that the EPCglobal's standardisation effort in China has been a failure.

On the other hand, RFID Asia has received an information that the Indonesian Government has been successfully lobbied by the EPCglobal/GS1 Indonesia to allocate a frequency spectrum according to Electronic Product Code (EPC) specified frequencies. It is expected that the frequency regulation in Indonesia will become official by the middle of this year. There is no official report on the amount of monetary value spent by the organisation to achieve this goal.


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Labels: china, epcglobal, indonesia, rfid, technology

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New business cases shared by speakers at the RFID Connect Asia event suggest that RFID will generate tremendous benefits in the value chain across various industries in 2006 and beyond.

The event will gather an unprecedented speaker line-up comprising of early adopters of RFID from Kimberly-Clark, Pfizer, Neptune Orient Lines, YCH, National Computerization Agency Korea, Australia Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries, MTR Corporation, Exonomy and many more.

RFID Connect Asia 2006 is the leading RFID business event in Asia showcasing the latest RFID developments, benefits, challenges and first-hand insights from early RFID adopters. This 4-day event will be held from 14th February to 17th February 2006 in Singapore at the Raffles City Convention Centre.

About RFID CONNECT Asia 2006
Endorsed and supported by EPCglobal, GS1 Singapore, Singapore Manufacturers Association, CompTIA, RFID Asia and RFID Society, this 4-day event comprises of a 2-day conference cum exhibition and is preceded by a 1-day workshop on ‘RFID Contactless Smart Card’ on 14th February 2006. RFID Connect Asia 2006 is proudly sponsored by STMicroelectronics, Philips, HP and Sun Microsystems.

See RFID ‘LIVE in ACTION.’
As part of the RFID Connect Asia 2006, attendees are invited to the NOL-SUN Advanced Technology Centre to see for themselves RFID testing in a ‘live’ supply chain environment that is similar to the RFID requirements mandated by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

We are extending a personal invitation to all media personnel to attend this event. For additional information, a copy of the event programme or to confirm your attendance, please do not hesitate to contact us. Event website: www.availcorp.com

About Avail Corporation
Avail Corporation specialises in business intelligence, event and management consultancy in Asia Pacific. Through our expertise and networks we will efficiently and professionally provide major organisations with the vehicle to access the world’s leading business minds as well as to provide a gateway to their future business clients.

MEDIA CONTACT:
Geraldine Chew
T.+65 6236 5757
F.+65 6221 1733
Email.gchew@availcorp.com
www.availcorp.com

Labels: business, card, connect, epcglobal, rfid, scm, singapore, technology

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EPCglobal and Maersk Logistics, a division of A.P. Moller-Maersk Group, are sponsoring an RFID project in south China in cooperation with the Hong Kong government.

It is expected that the implementation of RFID technology could reduce some paperwork, reduce cargo theft and prevent product counterfeiting by employing automatic data identification and collection facilitated by radio frequency technology.

The project is expected to begin later this year and end in December 2006, with findings from the pilot published in the following year.

Labels: china, epcglobal, maritime, project, rfid, technology

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After RFID tag manufacturers such as Alien Technologies and Avery Dennison recently announced their reduced price for tags and inlays in the psychological level of less than 20 cents and less than 10 cents for purchases of high quantity volumes of one million or more units,
UPM Rafsec today announced their UHF Gen 1 and Gen 2 inlays (OneTennaTM short dipole) at the similar pricing level of sub-10 cents with much lower purchase quantity level of 50,000 units.

At almost the same time, RFID Reader vendors, such as Applied Wireless Identifications (AWID) today announced its low price Gen2 reader, MPR-3014 for $1,000, according to RFID Update.

What does this “extreme” RFID hardware price trend mean?

In some rising economy regions that are tolerant of high prices, such as Scandinavia, these price changes are less significant than the South Asia region, for example. Nonetheless, lower RFID hardware price could leverage the total value of an RFID implementation in any region, assuming some other factors remain relatively the same.

In a simplified economic theory, price relates to supply and demand, i.e. an increase in demand could lead to a higher price and an increase in supply could lead to a lower price. A plausible explanation to the lower price could be a situation of over supply, where RFID hardware vendors have over predicted their sales volume due to hypes and adoption delay.

Another factor that could influence price is disruption. Technological disruption, such as a breakthrough in inlay manufacturing process, for instance, could lead to lower price. It is less probable that a breakthrough has happened. It is more probable to assume that vendors are outsourcing to Asia due to the fact that Asian countries are well known for their low-cost manufacturing capabilities.

In the current situation, there is a third factor that could influence the price, i.e. market positioning. The fierce competition in the RFID hardware market has forced several companies to cease operation or merge. The introduction of Gen2 specifications by EPCglobal has provided an edge for the existing and new RFID vendors to position their products in the market. By announcing their products as low-cost Gen2 compliance products first, they hope to gain a market share for some companies that have delayed RFID adoption due to high costs and lack of standardisation.

Quo Vadis?

There is no simple explanation for the current RFID hardware price trend.

Even though, it is still too early to conclude the beginning of RFID Hardware Price War, these announcements do spark some questions: Will this trend continue? How low can they go?

Only time will tell.

Labels: epcglobal, hardware, inlay, price, reader, rfid, tag, technology

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STMicroelectronics has introduced a UHF (Ultra-High Frequency) contactless memory chip, compliant with the latest Electronic Product Code™ (EPC) specifications.

The new XRAG2 builds on its predecessor (XRA00)for Very Long Range RFID systems and operates at a range of UHF frequencies from 860 to 960MHz. This frequency agility ensures the same tag can be applied and read at any place in the world, regardless of the geographically varying wireless regulations.

The XRAG2 features an anti-collision mechanism that allows the reader to detect and correctly identify all tags in its operating range. Designed for the noisy and unpredictable radio conditions typical of RFID applications, ST devices use a tag-unique selection based on a 16-bit random handle.

The Generation 2 specifications also optimize system performance in different reader environments. At facilities with more than 10 readers, XRAG2 chips are capable of operating in the dense-reading mode, which minimizes interference by allowing readers to transmit within a different sub-band from the one within which the tags respond.

The XRAG2’s security mechanisms include password-protection against tampering and the KILL command that supports disabling tags in the field so their data can never again be accessed. The ability to permanently deactivate a tag is vital in satisfying consumer privacy concerns. For example, the KILL command could be executed when the tagged item is purchased by a consumer, thereby disabling future tracking.

The XRAG2 is a 432-bit memory offering two possible configurations, thus allowing the tag to store dedicated industrial codes: three memory banks (64 bits TID, 304 bits for EPC code and 64 bits reserved), or four memory banks (128 bits user, 64 bits TID, 176 bits for EPC code and 64 bits reserved).

Developed using a highly reliable and mature CMOS technology with embedded EEPROM, the XRAG2 is well-suited to high-volume, cost-driven markets. Its non-volatile memory technology features 40-year data retention and more than 10,000 Write/Erase cycles to support the requirements of long-life applications.

Engineering samples of the XRAG2 are now with key partners, with full sample availability within the next few weeks and volume production expected by December 2005. The device is priced at $0.07 in 100,000 unit quantities. The product can be ordered in thin un-sawn wafers, or in bumped and sawn wafers.

Labels: 2.0, chip, epcglobal, privacy, reader, rfid, security, stmicro, tag, technology, tracking

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ATLANTA (EPCglobal US Conference) – September 14, 2005 – EPCglobal Inc, the not-for-profit organization entrusted with driving the commercial adoption of the Electronic Product Code (EPC) in global supply chains, today awarded to four testing facilities the first EPCglobal Performance Test Center Accreditation Marks. The Marks awarded during today’s General Session of the 2005 EPCglobal US Conference at the Georgia World Congress Center indicate that the sites use a standard set of performance test profiles to simulate real-world conditions in testing the readability of end-user products that are tagged with the Electronic Product Code.

The sites are located in Europe, Taiwan and the United States and span the retailing and manufacturing industries, as well as not-for-profit academia and government sponsorship. Additional testing facilities will be added to the list of accredited centers as they qualify.

“We want to make it easy for end users to ensure that their tagged shipments can be read before sending them through their global supply chains,” said Chris Adcock, president of EPCglobal Inc. “This is another global enabler for implementers, and it serves the community well to be assured that an accredited third party has established that these shipments can be read,” he said.

The following received the accreditations:

* Pacific RFID Performance Solutions; Hsinchu, Taiwan
* Kimberly-Clark Corp. Auto-ID Sensing Technologies Performance Test Center; Neenah, Wisconsin, USA
* METRO Group AG/GS1 Germany RFID Test Center; Neuss, Germany
* RFID Research Center, a unit of the Information Technology Research Institute, Sam M. Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas; Fayetteville, Ark., USA

“It is important to note that these facilities span the globe, as EPCglobal implementers do,” said Mike Meranda, president of EPCglobal US. “Even though this announcement affects implementers the world over, I am gratified that it could be made at the EPCglobal US Conference, so we can all share in the celebrations of these leading institutions.”

A current listing of accredited testing centers and other resources are available to EPCglobal subscribers at www.epcglobalinc.org/certification. To subscribe, or to access more information, visit www.epcglobalus.org.

Labels: business, epcglobal, network, rfid, technology, testing

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GS1 Malaysia, a member of GSI (Global Securities Information) Wednesday announced the adoption and implementation of an EPCglobal Network.

News contributor: Arpan Talwar

Labels: epcglobal, malaysia, network, rfid, security, technology

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Ken Sakamura, the father of Ubiquitous Computing believes that RFID standards should be open. He thinks that the current EPCGlobal's standardisation effort seems to be not practical, in addition to its focus on supply chain management applications, which makes the application of EPCGlobal's RFID standard for some other applications seems to be difficult.

Labels: epcglobal, rfid, scm, standard, technology

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A long-term focus of VeriSign in China will be on the emerging radio frequency ID (RFID) technology. VeriSign, trying to shift its advantage from the Internet, is designated by the RFID standard organization EPCGlobal to manage the root Object Naming Service (ONS) for the EPCGlobal network.

Labels: china, epcglobal, rfid, verisign

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The Chinese government and industries within China are working to develop RFID standards that are in line with specifications being used elsewhere in the world, representatives from the delegation told InformationWeek. "China will use EPCglobal and ISO standards, but with some modifications to satisfy special needs in China," said Qiang Bai, CTO at uniView Technologies.

Labels: china, epcglobal, rfid, standard

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