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Finnish Apparel Company Opens Its Doors to RFID
RFID tags supplied by UPM Raflatac are attached to all NP Collection's products during manufacture, and data from the tags is read at several points all the way to the central warehouse. The capacity to follow the stream of goods in real time provides substantial cost-reductions in logistics and manufacture. On the store level, this data can be exploited to plan shelf-use in advance, for example. Finally, the RFID tags can also function as antitheft devices. The RFID implementations continue a development project initiated by NP Collection in 2007, which covers the entire supply chain. The project aims to rationalize and intensify logistic processes and provide added value to customers by improving service levels. The intelligent store concept will expand to St. Petersburg, Russia, during November, where NP Collection is opening a new clothes store equipped with smart Senso modules similar to those currently used in Hollola. During the next six months, the company will also implement a new, RFID-assisted Shop in Shop concept designed for use in NP Collection's retailers' premises. The solutions are supplied through cooperation between several parties including UPM Raflatac, RDN, SML, Impinj, Microsoft, IBM, and Digia. A Look at Avery Dennison's Atlanta Technical Center
Avery Dennison RFID, a business unit of Avery Dennison Corporation, is a leading provider of RFID technology in the global marketplace and recognizes the importance of quality and performance testing of RFID products. Helping companies find cost effective and quality solutions for their RFID application needs is a top priority at Avery Dennison RFID's Atlanta Technical Center (ATC). The ATC, located in Flowery Branch, GA, is a state-of-the-art facility where real-world testing, consulting, and training are provided as a value added service to existing and potential customers interested in evaluating RFID to solve business process challenges and meet retail mandates. End-users, label converters, systems integrators and others rely on Avery Dennison's team of RF experts to test the performance of RFID tags on their products and materials. "I was very impressed with the technical expertise and comprehensive testing capabilities at Avery Dennison's Atlanta Technical Center," says Dave DePagter, Senior Manager of Business Systems at Sargento Foods Inc. "They analyzed my SKUs to determine the best tag and the best placement. Then they validated their recommendation with additional testing designed to simulate real-world conditions. The technical staff helped me understand each test and the results. At the end of the day, I walked away with both a solid tag strategy and a better understanding of RFID technology." While the ATC team does free-space read range and other standard tests, they go a step further to replicate applications to identify the best tag for the job and quantify issues involved in the application. How a particular tag works on a package, in a certain environment and is read by a particular reader is integral to developing effective RFID solutions. The ATC is equipped with leading printers and readers available on the market today to simulate real world RFID tagging environments. Testing is critical, not only to ensure that tags work in the target application, but also to ensure they meet design standards throughout the lifecycle, including inlay manufacture and label conversion. In the past year, the ATC has enhanced its staff with the addition of Harry Watkins, Vice President of Engineering. Watkins leads the current team of engineers, professionals, and technicians who are working to develop new RFID designs, products, applications, and process engineering. "The key to high read rates may be the tag, but sometimes it's selecting the right reader and tag combination," says Watkins. "There is no one-size-fits-all solution. We make it our business to understand the relative strengths and weaknesses of the different reader choices and tag designs and to offer objective, analytic data to customers to help them make the right choice to optimize the performance of their RFID application." Many RFID applications have been tested and designed by the ATC team to meet the Wal-mart mandate, and the team is now working to find the best RFID solutions for companies that need to meet Sam's Club requirements. In addition, the ATC team has worked on RFID solutions for retail and apparel, manufacturing, Department of Defense, aviation, pharmaceutical, and packaging applications. "The ATC is an objective source of information about the components of an RFID system including readers, antennas, and inlay packaging," says Maggie Bidlingmaier, Director of Sales and Marketing at Avery Dennison RFID. "Customers who have experienced this objectivity come back to us to explore emerging applications." Avery Dennison RFID customers, systems integrators, converter partners, and Sam's Club suppliers are welcome to visit the ATC for a testing demonstration and personal tour. Companies can also visit www.rfid.averydennison.com to view a virtual tour of the facility. Atmel Launches Low-frequency RF IDIC with Megapads for Direct Coil Bonding
The IDIC provides a manufacturer-programmed unique ID that is vital to guaranteeing access to secured areas. The unique ID also enables the traceability of the product, thus preventing easy cloning or counterfeiting of the tag IC. The unique ID and extended read/write distance have been optimized for next-generation access control applications including hotel rooms, engineering departments, offices, time recording systems, parking lots, and customer loyalty and membership cards. In addition, the new device operates according to ISO 11784 and ISO 11785 (FDX-B) standards, making it well-suited for animal identification and waste management applications. Since the ATA5577 is a low frequency (LF) device, it can be used worldwide. It is not sensitive to rugged environments and can also be used under conditions that normally complicate the application of RFID devices such as water, metal, or dirt; out-of-sight; or being worn on the body. Including the optional trimmed 250- or 330-pF on-chip capacitors, the ATA5577M2 is only 1 mm in width, which allows the chip to be used in almost any transponder package including glass transponders for animal identification. The device's new architecture enables outstanding read/write performance with differing types of coils, readers, and parameters, which is especially important for animal and waste management applications. A special register maximizes the overall read and write distance for each application environment. Thanks to a dedicated write procedure (downlink, reader-to-tag), the write distance has been increased to industry leading distances. This increased write distance is especially beneficial for applications in difficult environments. Samples are available now as sawn wafer on foil or die in waffle pack. Pricing for the ATA5577M2 as sawn-wafer shipment with quantities of 15k pieces starts at US$ 0.49. To support the system designer, Atmel provides the evaluation kit ATA2270-EK1. This is based on Atmel's LF-RFID reader chip U2270B and the AVR® microcontroller ATmega128. The kit includes all C-routines and PCB layout data in Gerber format. In addition, several tag samples are supplied with the kit for easy system implementation. In addition, a PC-based graphical user interface is also available. The ATA5577M2 can replace and is backward compatible with Atmel's well-known existing LF devices in several applications. Product information on Atmel's new RF IDIC ATA5577M2 with megapads may be retrieved here. ThingMagic's USB RFID ReaderThingMagic, Inc. introduces the USB RFID Reader, a powerful and small UHF RFID reader that is controlled and powered by a desktop or notebook PC. Targeted at solution providers, system integrators, and application developers, the USB RFID Reader's software tools, small size, and MSRP of $495 make it ideal for developing and deploying interactive read/write UHF RFID applications. "RFID is being deployed in an ever widening range of applications and our developers, integrators, and application partners have been asking for a smaller, inexpensive, easier to deploy UHF RFID reader," says Yael Maguire, CTO of ThingMagic. "The USB RFID Reader's small size, low price, and USB interface meets these needs and greatly expands the opportunities for our partners and customers to create innovative RFID applications for enterprises, small businesses, and consumers." Powered by the ThingMagic M5e-Compact embedded RFID module, the USB RFID Reader is EPCglobal Generation 2 compliant, includes an integrated RFID antenna and is designed for a read range of up to 12 inches. Supporting ThingMagic's application development tools, including Reader Assistant, the USB RFID Reader makes it easy to develop and deploy UHF RFID applications. Priced at $495 for individual orders, with volume discounts available, the USB RFID Reader is available from selected ThingMagic partners and from the ThingMagic online store. The USB RFID Reader includes a USB cord and connects to USB enabled desktop and notebook computers for both electrical power and application processing. The ThingMagic USB Reader is FCC and ETSI certified. RFID tags are not included.
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Finnish apparel company 
Atmel® Corporation announces the availability of the 363-bit read/write transponder IDIC® ATA5577M2. This device features large gold-bumped pads for direct bonding of the copper antenna coil. With integrated LC-tank-capacitors trimmed to a +/- 3% tolerance, the antenna coil is the only external component needed for a complete trimmed tag system, thus providing significant cost savings. 
