LABELS

OMRON Debuts Gen 2 Wave Tag for All UHF Frequencies

OMRON RFID (www.omronrfid.com) introduces the V750 Series Gen 2 Wave tag. It is designed to deliver high read performance in all UHF RFID frequency spectrums. International standards specify that UHF RFID communication bands be used between 860 and 960 MHz. Different tag designs specified for each regional frequency band were needed to achieve acceptable read/write performance. There was a demand for a tag that could perform in all frequencies.

“RFID-fueled global commerce will benefit because product manufacturers can choose just one tag design for use around the world,” says Bill Arnold, OMRON’s Chief Strategist. “OMRON RFID has a core competency in inlay antenna design. Our ability in this area is further demonstrated by the capabilities of the Loop tag, a Class 1 inlay, designed for superior performance even when applied to substances that are RF-unfriendly. The Loop tag is available for immediate shipment.”

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Sokymat Designs aTamper-Evident Tag for Dubai Jewelry

Sokymat SA has designed an RFID tag expressly for use in the jewelry industry. A Dubai-based service provider to jewelry wholesalers and retailers called The Jewellery Store dmcc (TJS) has joined efforts with Sokymat to create the tag, which offers accurate traceability and quick inventory checks of jewelry from the manufacturing level to the retail level.

The tag has a diameter of 16 mm, it is 2.6 mm thick, and it is tamper-evident. Once a tag is attached to a piece of jewelry, it cannot be removed and placed on a different item without leaving an electronic evidence of the tampering.

The creation of this tag began in 2004, when TJS gave Sokymat the task of developing and supplying a customized RFID product for their needs as service providers to the jewelry industry. Transponder designs, pilot tests, and a full-scale rollout followed, with over a million tags being produced. TJS and its partners will now have the ability to offer enhanced financing and more cost effective insurance solutions to retail and wholesale partners. This system can also assist retailers in performing inventory checks quickly and easily. Visit Sokymat at www.sokymat.com and The Jewellery Store dmcc at www.tjs.ae.

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Lab-ID Presents Tagged Wine Cork

An RFID-enabled wine cork has been created by Italian inlay/tag designer and manufacturer Lab-ID. It is called SmartCorq and it consists of an artificial wine cork embedded with RFID tags in various frequencies. SmartCorq allows winemakers to share product pedigree data like bottling date, type of grapes used, and alcohol percentage with distributors, retailers, and consumers. This ensures authenticity, automates the warehousing process, and can promote proper storage and handling.

A Lab-ID uses a Philips 13.56 MHz chip that has 1,024 bits of memory, and SmartCorqs can also be made with natural corks. Tagging corks instead of labels is more secure because labels can be more easily damaged in handling. Employees read and write data to the corks after they are inserted into the bottles. Visit www.lab-id.com.

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UPM Raflatac HF and UHF Tags and Inlays for Pharma

UPM Raflatac has several new HF tag and inlay offerings for the pharmaceutical industry, designed for plastic bottles and pharmaceutical boxes with a wide selection of fit-for-application memory configurations. The Rafsec 45 mm x 76 mm, the Rafsec 16 mm x 28 mm, and the Rafsec Round 25 mm are ISO 1800-3-2 compliant. They have high-speed read/write performance and high anti-collision rate. The Rafsec Round can also come ISO 15963 compliant, as can the Rafsec 10 mm x 23 mm.

UPM Raflatac also offers a Class 1 Gen 2 certified UHF tags. The Rafsec G2 “Mini” is 1" x 1" (for plastic bottles and pharmaceutical boxes). It has an impressive performance/size ratio, 96-bit memory, and excellent omni directional performance. All of the products are available as tag, wet inlay, dry inlay, and in-mold tag. The in-mold delivery format is designed to be integrated into plastic packages in injection and blow molding processes. The in-mold tag has high resistance against heat and moisture. Visit www.rafsec.com.

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Confidex Releases the Durable Survivor Tag

Confidex, a Finnish RFID product and service provider, releases its new Class 1 Gen 2 UHF tag called Survivor. It is a reusable hard tag that costs less than $1 in volumes of hundreds or thousands. Survivor’s dimensions are 223 mm x 23 mm x 8 mm and it can be mounted to any surface, even metal. It has a read range of approximately 20 ft. (7 m) in the U.S. and 15 ft. (5 m) in Europe, and it has a 96-bit user preprogrammed memory. The tag is made durable through the use of polystyrene for encapsulation. This is a plastic that is often applied to consumer products in the automotive and electronics industries.

“The need for EPC Gen 2 compliant, efficient, and low-cost hard tags is ever increasing in the field of industrial and logistics applications. Until today, the markets have not seen such a solution,” says Timo Lindström, CEO of Confidex. “With our long-term expertise in RFID product design and our mission to produce EPC Gen 2 standards-complaint products, we were able to design a hard tag that sets new benchmarks for UHF hard tags.” Visit Confidex at www.confidex.fi.

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Owens-Illinois’ RFID-Embedded Prescription Bottles

Owens-Illinois HealthCare Packaging (O-I) offers prescription bottles with the RFID tag embedded in the plastic bottle itself, rather than in a label placed on the bottle. These tags are tamper-resistant, tamper-evident, and difficult to counterfeit. Less damage occurs with these than label tags during label conversion. The molded-in integration protects the tag from secondary damage.

The embedded package has a higher performance than a label, and there are fewer null reads from tag-to-tag contact. Consistent orientation is maintained because the embedded tags are always in the same spot—centered in the base. Traceability is improved because it extends from the manufacturer through the fill line to the consumer, not just from the labeler forward.

The solution seamlessly integrates with existing process/packaging equipment, has the flexibility to read/write at many locations, and is less dependent on orientation to optimize read/write rates. It has a similar look, feel, and line performance to existing packages. Visit www.o-i.com.

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Partnered Print Solutions’ Proven Freezer Labels

Partnered Print Solutions (www.partprintsol.com) is now marketing proven freezer labels that will be able to incorporate both barcode and RFID. This offering comes on the heels of Topflight Corporation’s (www.topflight.com) completion of testing various RFID label frequencies in liquid nitrogen. In the studies, the chip and its mounting sustained complete immersion in the liquid nitrogen, operated effectively when held just above the surface of the liquid nitrogen bath, and performed accurately just out of the tank.

This is significant because RFID could be a good replacement for barcodes in cryostorage repositories that preserve cells, tissue, or other biological samples. With transponders embedded in freezer labels, they can be read even when a barcode is not visible. Time saved in counting inventories of labeled frozen samples that don’t require barcode scanning could more than pay for costs to add RFID technology to present barcode printing operations. Secure shipping and tracking is another benefit.

“We have shown that freezers do not affect RFID labels that have been applied to full vials and even when not allowed time to thaw,” says Tom Hartmann of Topflight Corporation. “Multi-frequency testing shows us that we can offer the RFID technology to clients who must put the RFID labels to the test in severe environments, and they won’t be hurt by freezing.”

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Hitachi Has Paper-Thin Integrated Circuit

Hitachi Ltd. (www.hitachi.com) has developed and verified operation of what it claims is the world’s smallest and thinnest RFID Integrated Circuit: 0.15 mm x 0.15 mm x 7.5 micrometer (µm) thick. The circuit is designed to be used within sheets of paper, which are typically 80 µm thick.

The chip is a smaller version of the 0.4 mm x 0.4 mm “µm-Chip” currently being marketed by Hitachi. The significant size reduction of the chip was made possible by Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technology. The smaller size means that more chips can be fabricated per silicon wafer, increasing RFID chip production.

The chip uses an external antenna to receive radio waves and transmit the ID number. Since data is written during the fabrication process using read-only-memory, it is impossible to rewire the data, giving the chip a high level of authenticity. Hitachi is trying to further improve the chip by doing things like cutting the antenna size and broadening communication coverage.

By taking advantage of the merits of compactness, high authenticity, and contactless communication, combined with Internet technology, the chip may be utilized in a broad range of applications such as security, transportation, amusement, traceability, and logistics.

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Unique Healthcare Solution Requires ClearOrbit’s X.LM

ClearOrbit believes that when using RFID in the pharmaceutical applications, the labeling and tag burning systems have to be highly customizable. Often it is necessary to blend print labels with tags because some pharmaceutical products are shipped in sterile foil packages that don’t allow for RFID tags and must depend on customized labels. Also, different HIPPA and FDA requirements can be fulfilled only with customized labels.

ClearOrbit serves a client that ships human flesh for grafting. This company could find FDA label compliance only through ClearOrbit because it needed such a large number of custom labels with each shipment (one for the shipper, one for the loading dock, one for the doctor, one for the patient record, one for the insurance, etc.). So, each shipment has to have a customized label and—in some cases—each label has to be different or contain different information.

ClearOrbit markets a product that has this unique customizability out of the box. ClearOrbit’s new X.LM (Extended Label Manager) offers global barcode and RFID label management for any warehouse management system (WMS) or enterprise resource planning system (ERP). Affordable, pre-packaged, and easy to implement quickly, X.LM offers a barcode and RFID label compliance management software for companies of any size. Using an open architecture that can exchange XML or leverage direct APIs, X.LM offers connectivity from any WMS or ERP to all leading barcode label printers and RFID printers. X.LM serves as a central repository for all the current drivers needed to run these diverse devices while isolating the ERP and WMS applications and business process from the effects of any hardware changes.

X.LM is available in two versions, X.LM Gold and X.LM Silver. Both versions are driven by flexible-rules-based printing and label selection, provide Web printing from remote facilities, and reduce the total cost of label management through their fast installation and implementation. Visit www.clearorbit.com.

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TAGSYS Introduces Package-is-the-Tag™

The Package-is-the-Tag™ by TAGSYS (www.tagsysrfid.com) is an item-level approach that enables the tag to be a component of the actual package. It consists of two parts: a very small, low cost, universal, UHF “kernel” tag and an adaptive antenna that is customized to and incorporated within the package of the item. It is fully adaptable to customer’s packaging shapes, materials, and sizes, and nature of goods in the packaging. It can be customized to the customers’ industrial environment, process organization, reading distances and conditions, privacy requirements, and region of use.

“The-Package-is-the-Tag approach and the AK family of tags herald a new step forward for item-level RFID,” says Elie Simon, CEO of TAGSYS. “With EPCglobal’s ratification of Gen 2 standards, the industry is now able to leverage the innovation and advancements around UHF-based technologies for item-level applications. Through this new adaptable and flexible solution for item-level RFID, we believe that we will be able to offer our clients a completely customized, cost-efficient, reliable, accurate, and secure RFID offering and will help drive the delivery of item-level RFID in new sectors.”

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TI and Smurfit-Stone Prototype Their RFID Embedded Package

Texas Instruments (www.ti.com), in collaboration with Smurfit-Stone Container Corporation, demonstrated their prototypes for the first Gen 2 RFID strap-on-box at RFID World. Smurfit-Stone (www.smurfit-stone.com) has developed an innovative process for attaching TI’s Tag-it™ Gen 2 straps to printed antennas directly on a corrugated box. Smurfit-Stone is introducing its technology to consumer products goods manufacturers applying Gen 2 technology to cases for supply chain tracking applications.

“Speed and flexibility continue to be crucial for RFID tag assembly and converting process technology in the supply chain,” says Tony Sabetti, Director of UHF/Retail Supply Chain, Texas Instruments RFID Systems. “By staying focused on these two basic attributes for our strap technology, we’ll continue to introduce innovations for packaging and smart label solutions that provide automation and scalability for CPGs deploying Gen 2 implementations.”

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Avery Dennison’s Gen 2 Inlay Portfolio

Avery Dennison RFID, a business unit of Avery Dennison Corporation, showcased its portfolio of high-performance Gen 2 RFID inlays at RFID World. It includes products for carton/pallet and item-level applications and supports EPC Gen 2 and ISO 18000-6C protocols. The offerings address several RF concerns, including RF-unfriendly carton contents, tag orientation issues, high density environments, and other challenges. The inlays are designed to integrate seamlessly into existing high-speed, high-volume converting processes.

The Gen 2 inlays for item-level applications include the AD-812 (designed for pharmaceutical bottles, 1" x 1", orientation insensitive) and the AD-820 (designed for retail environments, content and orientation insensitive). The Gen 2 carton/pallet inlay offerings include the AD-220 (small factor, general purpose inlay designed for an easy transition from Gen 1), the AD-420 (high performance inlay for wide range of products including metals and liquids), the AD-612 (“wide band” inlay that delivers international functionality on RF-friendly products), and the AD-622 (orientation-insensitive inlay that works well on a variety of carton contents). Visit www.rfid.averydennison.com

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Ekahau Uses Wi-Fi for Real-Time People and Asset Tracking

Ekahau’s T201 Wi-Fi Tag leverages the Ekahau RTLS software platform to provide reliable and accurate, real-time people and asset tracking in any standard Wi-Fi network. The active tag is 1.9" x 2.2" x 0.9", is water splash proof, has a long battery life, and operates over any standard 802.11 wireless networks. In comparison to proprietary tracking systems that require a separate network of hardware readers or gates for sensing the location of tags, Ekahau Wi-Fi tags require no additional network hardware overlay.

The T201 tag is more suitable for tracking equipment, personnel, or high value assets in hospitals, manufacturing plants, or any other type of facility where knowledge of the actual and up-to-date location can improve efficiency and safety. Ekahau has over 20 hospital installations in the USA and also several overseas. The tag features an audio buzzer and two red/green LEDs that help to distinguish the tag location. A call button is also featured for security applications, enabling the user to send alerts, including the location of the alerter, to security personnel or caregivers. Visit www.ekahau.com.

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