Avery Dennison RFID has released three new ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID tags made with Impinj Monza 5 chips. According to the company, this completes a portfolio of five UHF EPC Gen 2 passive RFID tags designed to be faster to encode than previous UHF tags, more sensitive for reading and writing, and available in a offer a variety of form factors.
Avery Dennison has been working with Impinj for years to develop inlays containing chips that meet users’ changing needs, says George Dyche, Avery Dennison’s director of RFID product-line management. The latest tags round out a line of tags intended to present greater versatility to a variety of market sectors, ranging from logistics to jewelry, in smaller sizes and greater sensitivity, using Impinj’s year-old Monza 5 chip (see Impinj Launches Products to Speed Item-Level Encoding).
The latest additions are the AD-550m5 tag (for aviation and general-purpose supply chain applications), the 233m5 model (for item-level apparel tagging) and the 171m5 inlay (for tagging smaller items in the retail and health-care sectors). The three new tags were preceded by two other Avery Dennison inlays made with the Monza 5 chip: the AD-110m5 tag, released in December 2011 and designed for health-care applications, and the 227m5 general-purpose supply chain compliance tag, unveiled in September of this year.
Impinj and Avery Dennison RFID will describe details of the new tags at a webinar scheduled for Dec. 11 at 9:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. EST, titled New RFID Inlays Expand Tracking Application Possibilities. “Our purpose is to showcase the Monza 5 inlay family” that Avery Dennison has released, Dyche explains.
The AD 227m5 tag, a general-purpose band inlay measuring 3.77 inches by 0.33 inch, replaces the AD 223 version and offers greater read sensitivity than that model, as well as faster encoding due to the chip upgrade. The tag is being utilized for tracking large retail items, bagged or hanging apparel and boxed electronics.
The AD 550m5 tag targets the aviation market, for such use cases as airline baggage tagging and baggage transfer labels. The tag, measuring 1.5 inches by 2.99 inches, is a hybrid replacement for the AD 833 omni-directional tag and the AD 843 inlay, designed for use on a variety of materials, including metal. In the case of the 550m5 version, Dyche says, the inlay design removes the characteristic null zones of a typical dipole antenna, and also provides performance characteristics like an omni-directional antenna. In this way, he notes, it incorporates the functionality of both of its predecessors.
Another new multipurpose tag is the AD 171m5 model, intended for application to smaller retail items (such as jewelry) or health-care products (like vials and test tubes). The tag measures 1 inch by 0.55 inch—a smaller form factor than that of the general-purpose 227m5 model. The 171m5 version, Dyche reports, is designed to meet the need for small tags in areas where space is limited. Despite its small size, he notes, it offers a long read range—up to a distance of 4 feet—due to the Monza 5 chip’s sensitivity, as well as its antenna design focusing on both “face-on” and “edge-on” performance. What’s more, he says, the tag can operate well in the presence of liquids and metals.
The AD 110m5 tag, the first of Avery Dennison’s Monza 5 inlays to be released, is the smallest in the family, is pure near-field, has a shorter read range than that of the 171m5 version, and measures 0.91 inch by 0.2 inch. According to Dyche, this tag is best used in deployments for which the tag must be extremely small, such as on test tubes or jewelry, or when it needs to be embedded in a product—for example, to be used on high-value goods that may be returned and would thus need to be identified by the manufacturer. In the case of jewelry, he explains, the 110m5 model would be the best choice for very small pieces to be read in close proximity (such as being placed on a reader antenna pad), while the 171m5 tag could be attached to jewelry and be read through a cabinet’s glass via a handheld reader.
For all five tag models, Dyche states, “the Monza 5 provides increased sensitivity and enables smaller form factors,” while also providing faster encoding and greater read reliability than tags using the Monza 3 IC. Impinj and Avery Dennison, he says, “have a history of working together to make sure we understand the chip performance capability. This understanding enables Avery Dennison to optimize antenna development to meet the performance requirements of the application. We like to solve problems.” In this case, Dyche explains, the challenges were related to tag size, read range, encoding speed and other factors specific to the needs of various industries.
The Monza 5 chip, which offers 128 bits of Electronic Product Code (EPC) memory, enables inlays to be smaller and provide greater sensitivity, says Nikhil Deulkar, Impinj’s senior product line manager. The cost of the newest inlays, Dyche adds, will be no higher than that of the tags’ predecessors. “They’ll get more value at no increase in price,” he states.
For serialization, Deulkar says, Avery Dennison provides a service bureau, while the Monza 5 ICs enable users to accomplish their own serialization via a process known as Monza Self-Serialization, using the chip’s built-in 48-bit Tag Identifier (TID) number—something not possible with the Monza 3 version.