Apr 18, 2012Earlier this month, NXP Semiconductors announced and showcased a new EPC Gen 2 ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID reader chip—the model SLRC900—designed specifically for the appliance and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) markets. The SLRC900 chip—a complete system-on-chip solution that includes an EPC Gen 2 UHF RFID transceiver and an integrated microcontroller—was unveiled at the RFID Journal LIVE! 2012 conference and exhibition, held in Orlando, Fla. NXP developed the new IC in partnership with Korean RFID technology firm PHYchips.
According to NXP, a growing number of manufacturers now integrate RFID readers into their products, ranging from printers to beverage-dispensing machines, in order to enhance the consumer experience, as well as thwart the counterfeiting of such consumable products as inkjet cartridges or flavored syrups. The interrogator can identify the serial number encoded to a consumable's RFID tag, thereby helping to ensure that product's quality, improve functionality, and protect a company's brand and intellectual property from the threat of counterfeiters. For example, the reader chip's microcontroller could log an ink cartridge's tag ID number as that cartridge was inserted, and then determine if the cartridge was authorized by the printer's manufacturer. If the cartridge did not contain a tag (perhaps due to it being counterfeit, or made by a competing brand), the printer might not be able to provide the consumer with optimized printer operation. In addition, the printer could be designed to alert the consumer if the cartridge were nearly empty or fake.
NXP's SLRC900 chip is optimized for reading tags at close range, according to Ralf Kodritsch, the company's head of marketing, text and labels, and offers low power consumption and a low cost of ownership. While he declines to release pricing details, he reports that the integration of an RF link and a microcontroller onto a single chip makes implementation easier and more cost-effective. "There are what I'd call Rolls-Royce kinds of solutions out there that are very, very expensive," Kodritsch says. "Ours reduces the bill of materials, because if, in the appliance or consumer goods, there is no microcontroller, you can use the one in the reader chip."
Samples of the SLRC900 IC are now available. Next month, Kodritsch says, NXP Semiconductors plans to begin offering demonstrator modules—printed circuit boards (PCBs) that have the reader IC and additional peripherals built in so that customers can begin creating reference designs.
The global RFID market continues to grow—a recent report from RNCOS, titled "Global RFID Market Forecast to 2014," estimates that the market will reach $19.3 billion by that year. ABI Research reports that there is a strong market demand, in particular, in the areas of retail apparel and FCMG, as retailers and brand owners strive to improve their control of the supply chain, optimize inventory-management and -replenishment processes, and increase brand protection.
In mid-2011, ABI Research released a report illustrating the growing demand for solutions that can aid in anti-counterfeiting, brand protection and authentication efforts. The study, titled "Anti-counterfeiting, Brand Protection and Authentication," found that IC-based security chips (a category including RFID tags), while amounting to slightly more than 5 percent of all anti-counterfeiting, brand-protection and authentication solutions shipped between 2010 and 2016, will contribute more than 32 percent of all revenues for that segment. ABI Research cites a new class of products—authentication ICs—that overlap with the secure memory ICs already found in some anti-counterfeiting and authentication applications.
Authentication chips—often used to ensure that credit and security cards are genuine and authorized—are now starting to be utilized within a variety of markets plagued by counterfeiting, and can also be used in everything from computer circuit boards to networking devices that connect to cloud computers. A secure memory chip provides memory integrated with a hardware encryption engine, as well as authentication keys and encryption keys, into a single IC, as a means of preventing product counterfeiting and piracy. Such ICs are typically mounted on a PCB, with value added by the RFID functionality. ABI's report predicted that authentication ICs will account for the bulk of all anti-counterfeiting, brand-protection and authentication solutions shipped between 2010 and 2016, and will demonstrate substantial growth rates in a market expected to be worth $6 billion by 2016.
