Malaysian chip manufacturer FEC International has released what it believes is the first tag antenna designed to fit on an ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) EPC Gen 2 RFID chip, thereby resulting in a fully functioning EPC RFID tag about the size of a grain of sand. NXP Semiconductors is promoting the FEC antenna for use on its Ucode G2XM chip, which measures just 0.46 millimeter by 0.48 millimeter (0.018 inch by 0.019 inch). According to FEC, an IC featuring the company’s On-Chip Antenna (OCA) design can be used for tracking documents, as well as for authenticating high-value consumer items, such as clothing, shoes or handbags.
While other RFID chip providers have developed several ICs with on-board antennas that allow them to scale down tag size (see Hitachi Unveils Integrated RFID Antenna, Institute Designs Tag With Built-in Antenna and Chip Size Passive RFID Tag Promises Long Range), NXP and FEC indicate that until now, there has been no commercially available EPC Gen 2 UHF chip with an onboard antenna.
In the past, FEC had previously developed on-board antenna chips made with ICs known as “Malaysia Microchips,” or MMs (see First Multifrequency Chip Unveiled). The MM chips, however, employ proprietary RFID specifications. Plans for developing an antenna that can be formed on an EPC Gen 2 chip began in November 2008, says Eiji Murakoso, the general manager of FEC’s planning and development division. The firm began designing a multi-layer antenna that fits onto an EPC chip in spring 2009, and started testing a completed antenna on an EPC Gen 2 chip this year.
“Previously, our company had been developing OCA product based on the MM chip’s original protocol,” Murakoso says. “However, we decided to proceed with the development (to meet) demand from the market for an EPC-compliant OCA product. Technically, all the know-how cultivated in previous OCA development also appears in the current product development.”
End users could attach or embed the tiny chip-size EPC Gen 2 tags on or within small items in such a way that the tags could be hidden, or have a very small footprint that would not obscure something like text on a paper document. The tags have a read range of just 1 millimeter (0.04 inch), and must be interrogated by a handheld RFID reader with an antenna specially designed for reading the OCA chip.
Because the tags have such a short read range, the company reports, they are being marketed specifically for applications such as document tracking, as opposed to logistics, in which case a long read range is important. In the case of document tracking, several tagged documents could be read simultaneously, as long as all of their tags were within 1 millimeter of the interrogator’s antenna.
The advantage to the small form factor in document tracking is twofold, says Ralf Kodritsch, the head of marketing at NXP’s Tags & Labels Division. Because of their small size, OCA tags made with the Ucode G2XM chip can be embedded in the paper itself (assuming the paper is thick enough, and that the tag is embedded in such a way that the 1-millimeter read-range demand is still met). Even if the tag was not embedded, but was instead attached to the paper’s surface with an adhesive, its small form factor would ensure that the tag would not cover text on the paper—which is a concern with some conventional UHF Gen 2 RFID tags if their larger size necessitates a greater amount of space on the paper than the text allows.
In the case of high-value consumer goods—such as jackets, shoes or handbags—the tags could be embedded in a product (depending on the material in which it is being embedded, and whether that material would allow a read), or attached to its surface in such a way that they would be nearly invisible to the naked eye. In that way, counterfeiters would have difficulty locating the tags—and, thus, attempting to tamper with them.
“We do see a lot of potential in these markets,” Kodritsch says, referring to applications involving the tracking of paper documents or high-value consumer goods. “If you want to use RFID for authentication item by item, then this is the solution.”
To make the new tags, FEC forms the antenna on the surface of a G2XM chip, and then connects it to the IC, using the company’s own patented technology. The G2XM chip offers a 240-bit EPC memory area, a 64-bit tag ID (TID), a 32-bit access password, a 32-bit kill password and 512 bits of user memory, for a total memory of 880 bits. In the same way they utilize conventional tags with an external antenna, users of a G2XM tag with an on-chip antenna can encode the chip with a unique Electronic Product Code (EPC) number and employ it to track a document or item by referring to the ID number stored in their own databases. Any EPC Gen 2-compliant RFID reader with an output of at least 10 milliwatts could read the new chip, the company reports. However, the device would require a specially designed antenna. Currently, FEC sells a reader made with TagSense‘s Nano-UHF RFID reader module and an antenna developed by FEC for use with its own OCA chips. The FEC reader plugs into a computer’s USB port.
Because this tiny EPC Gen 2 tag could be attached to products that had previously been too small to be tagged—or that did not lend themselves to carrying a large, cumbersome, obviously visible tag—FEC expects further evolution toward the use of RFID tags on nearly all products. “Our aim is to contribute to the formation of the ubiquitous society by applying RFID to all (things),” Murakoso states. While NXP is the only current partner, he says, FEC International continues to speak with other potential partners for a variety of applications. “The inquiries from the industries and users who can not apply RFID until now—because of the large form factor—even if they want to, are scheduled to be dealt with individually.”
FEC chose to work with the G2XM model because it was the latest of NXP’s Gen 2 UHF products. FEC’s OCA technology could be used with other EPC Gen 2 chips, Murakoso notes, though the antenna design would need to be optimized for that chip’s characteristics.
Another potential application, FEC adds, is the tagging of insects. Currently, creatures as small as ants, for example, can not be identified individually. But with the FEC technology, a chip could be adhered to the ant and it could be tracked as it passed over or under a reader installed at, for instance, the tunnel to a nest. In Japan, there is a large market for buying and selling insects (such as live beetles and crickets) as pets for high prices. That sector could also use the RFID tags to track which insects are sold, as well as a particular bug’s history and its transportation from one location to another.
FEC has not yet set a price for OCA tags made with the G2XM chip, Murakoso says, though he predicts that the cost-to-value ratio will make it reasonably inexpensive.