Alien Technology® Introduces Its New High-Performance Integrated Circuit with Extended Memory and Security for Passive RFID Tags
Alien Technology announces its new high-performance H3 (Higgs) Integrated
Circuit (IC). With 512 bits of user memory and advanced security features, the H3 complements Alien’s existing H2 product. The new IC is
targeted at converters and end customers requiring exceptional performance, unique tag identification, and extended memory capabilities required
to fully address RFID applications such as: airline baggage; pharmaceutical drugs; secure access; e-passports; and tracking of high-value assets and items
such as electronics, or wines and spirits.
“Based on benchmark testing, the Alien Higgs-3 IC provides a 50% sensitivity improvement over competitive products, and a 25%
improvement above and beyond our industry-leading Higgs-2 IC, which currently powers Alien’s Squiggle® portfolio of EPC Gen 2 inlays
and tags,” says Steve Smith, CTO and Founder of Alien Technology.
Key features of the new Alien H3 IC include:
- Authentication. The H3 has a 64-bit Unique Tag ID (UTID), which is programmed at the factory and cannot be altered. This allows the manufacturer
to ensure the authenticity of any product it sells. This is particularly important to vendors of high value branded products subject to counterfeiting and
diversion, pharmaceuticals held to increasingly stringent e-pedigree requirements, and merchants dealing with return fraud.
- Memory. H3 also brings a new level of memory flexibility to RFID chips with expanded user memory, block level data access passwords, an extensible
EPC number, and accelerated programming commands. The IC has 512-bits of user memory, which allows it to support legacy part numbering structures,
service records, and chain of custody requirements such as e-pedigree. The user memory can also be sub-divided into blocks and assigned read and write
passwords, allowing the IC to contain both public and private data. The IC also supports EPC numbers up to 496-bits in length, which allows for the use of
alternate part number encoding standards as well as proprietary schemes.
- Sensitivity. In addition to being more sensitive than the H2 (the IC that powers Alien’s Squiggle tags), the H3 builds upon the industry leading
interference rejection performance of the H2. These improvements result in higher read rates, better performance in noisy radio frequency environments,
smaller tags, and greater read range.
- Interoperability. Designed in compliance with the latest EPC v1.2 specification, the H3 supports the mandatory and optional EPC Gen 2 commands,
including the item-level commands, and works with all EPC Gen 2 compliant readers. Alien RFID integrated circuits are designed to integrate with either
UHF Near Field or Far Field antennas, and accommodate global UHF tags for spectrum bands inclusive of 840MHz to 960MHz.
The Alien H3 IC is currently being sampled with partners and customers, with general availability scheduled for late July. Like the H2 IC, which has been
shipping since December 2006, the H3 will be available in several packaging options, including Straps and Flip Chip.
“With the introduction of its new H3 chip, Alien once again raises the bar for performance and security features,” says Michael
Liard, research director for RFID and contactless technologies and markets at ABI Research. “We view the availability of Alien H2 chip and the
introduction of the H3 as positive developments for Alien and the industry.”
Impinj Adds Industry Veterans
to Sales and Marketing Team
Semiconductor and RFID technology provider Impinj, Inc. announces that RFID and supply-chain
industry veterans Philip Calderbank and Scott Medford have joined the company’s sales and marketing organization.
Appointed to the role
of Senior Director of Marketing, Apparel Markets, Philip Calderbank will help Impinj define market and product strategy for the fast-growing apparel and
fashion segments of the UHF RFID market. He has more than 30 years of sales and marketing experience including 16 years of RFID sales experience at
Sensormatic, Global ID Technologies, Seeburger, and Avery Dennison. Most recently, he was Director of Global Marketing RFID & Security for Avery
Dennison where he was responsible for RFID and EAS product strategy and marketing working with apparel companies including Marks & Spencer,
Levi, Dillards, and METRO Group’s Kaufhof. Calderbank has been involved in a number of pioneering RFID industry initiatives including the
deployment of the fully integrated CCTV and RFID-based access control system installed in sports stadiums for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. Calderbank
holds a B.A. in Business Administration with an additional major in international marketing from Rochville University and Asbourne University.
Filling the position of Senior Sales Director, North America, Scott Medford will lend his extensive experience to serving key Impinj customers and to
developing the company’s sales organization in the Americas. He has more than 30 years of technical supply-chain and RFID sales and support
experience. For more than three years, Medford was Vice President of RFID at Intermec Inc. where he focused the company’s efforts in
product marketing, strategy, business development and technical support. Throughout his career, Medford has developed extensive VAR, solutions, and
alliance relationships throughout the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Working through standards bodies and industry forums such as IEEE, AIM Global
(board member), EPCGlobal, and through countless articles and interviews, Medford has bridged the gap between the
“what” of technology and the “why” of implementation. He attended Arlington Baptist College
and served in the U.S. Navy.
“We are very pleased to welcome Philip and Scott to our growing marketing and sales
team,” says William Colleran, President and CEO at Impinj. “With more than 60 combined years of relevant experience, their
contributions to advancing Impinj’s RFID market leadership position will be invaluable.”
With Pilots Moving to Enterprise Rollouts, OATSystems Debuts OATenterprise to RFID-enable Multiple Sites
OATSystems announces the immediate availability of OATenterprise, a highly scalable
management platform that provides real-time RFID visibility for distributed operations while simplifying the management and deployment of all RFID
solutions, from single-facility to the largest enterprise installations. The new capability was driven by OAT’s customers, which are now rapidly
moving from RFID pilots to company-wide rollouts spanning dozens to more than 1,000 sites.
Companies seeking to proactively manage their
supply chains and manufacturing operations require a single view of critical processes across multiple facilities, divisions, continents, and trading partners.
OATenterprise provides a single dashboard for deploying, monitoring, and optimizing processes, data, devices, and workflow rules. Real-time process
management enables companies to track orders, assets, and equipment and, most importantly, to address exceptions at any stage of the process, at any location.
OATenterprise removes the barriers typically associated with implementations at more than one site or location. It is a "multi-site
enabler,” providing OAT customers with full enterprise visibility and a variety of multiple-site capabilities, including:
- Managing enterprise-wide master data, devices, and EPC numbers to avoiding overlapping or duplication across multiple sites.
- Enabling users to configure a device once then replicate at multiple facilities.
- Aggregating data from multiple and disparate sources into a single central database for further analysis and use with business intelligence applications.
- Configuring, managing, and deploying RFID processes and workflows.
- Automatically distributing loads across available resources within a site.
- Monitoring devices and operations in real-time across the enterprise.
- Integrating with existing business systems.
With the above capabilities, OATenterprise enables companies to manage globally across multiple sites and act locally to improve operations. Individual
facilities can now eliminate process errors preemptively before they propagate into their operations, where they become more costly to correct. While
OATenterprise is engineered to meet the demands of large-scale operations, it also addresses the needs of early-stage implementations, supporting
single-site infrastructures. Users can access all of this functionality through an easy-to-use web interface, giving administrators a single point to manage
and monitor enterprise-scale RFID deployments. It also goes beyond infrastructure and device management, enabling customers to provision business logic
directly on edge devices, such as readers, controllers, and local servers.
“Companies that are moving beyond pilots and looking to deploy RFID will benefit greatly from OATenterprise,” says Paul
Cataldo, Vice President of Marketing for OATSystems. “We have customers that are beginning to roll out RFID solutions to an enormous
number of sites. While OAT customers have always been able to manage multiple sites, OATenterprise requires far less time, cost, and resources; it’s
the ultimate, scalable RFID infrastructure that organizations won’t outgrow.”
OATenterprise is available immediately at no additional cost for OATSystems customers with enterprise-wide licenses.
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