The following are news announcements made during the past week.
Cornell University School of Hotel Administration Gives Students RFID Experience
California uniform and linen efficiency technology firm InvoTech Systems has announced that The Statler Hotel, a full-service luxury property and educational facility located on Cornell University‘s campus, will install InvoTech’s GIMS ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID uniform-tracking and inventory system, along with White Conveyors‘ automated U-Pick-It uniform-delivery system, to streamline operations. The Statler Hotel is Cornell’s showcase property for students at the university’s School of Hotel Administration. The U-Pick-It system automatically dispenses the proper uniform to an employee when he or she presents the appropriate credentials. InvoTech’s GIMS solution, which employs EPC Gen 2 passive RFID tags to help organizations track and manage linens, uniforms and other garments, includes Impinj‘s Speedway Revolution readers, AN720 and AN480 antennas from Motorola Solutions, and RFID tags provided by Fujitsu Frontech North America. InvoTech and White Conveyors announced the integration of their two systems in August 2011 (see Resort Uses RFID to Track Uniforms), as part of an implementation for Fallsview Casino Resort, located in Niagara Falls, Ontario. The RFID-enabled U-Pick-It system was also recently deployed at Rivers Casino, located in Des Plaines, Ill. (see New Chicago-area Casino Chips Its Uniforms). With the implementation at The Statler Hotel, students will gain hands-on practice with the RFID system. “The new systems will provide a dual advantage for us,” said Richard Adie, The Statler Hotel’s general manager, in a prepared statement. “We will be more efficient and cost-effective in our uniform-management operations. We also have the opportunity to give our students hands-on experience with some of the most innovative technologies in the hotel business.” InvoTech Systems will provide the GIMS real-time tracking software, as well as professional installation, training and all related equipment; installation is scheduled to take place in January 2012.
Burger King Orders Hundreds of RFID-enabled Freestyle Beverage Dispensers
Guests at Burger King‘s company-owned restaurants will soon be able to choose from more than 100 different beverages—carbonated or not—from a single, freestanding beverage unit. The beverage dispenser, known as the Coca-Cola Freestyle, is touch-screen-operated and serves regular and low-calorie beverage brands, flavored waters, sports drinks, lemonades and other options, many exclusive to Coca-Cola Freestyle. The Freestyle system has RFID-tagged cartridges, with a built-in interrogator that captures the unique ID number and other data encoded to each cartridge’s tag; tracking the tags helps to ensure that they are not incorrectly placed or depleted. The machine utilizes RFID technology to identify 30 or more cartridges to create the various flavors, verify that each cartridge is correctly placed, determine the quantity of flavoring within each and provide real-time business analytics regarding product consumption and preferences (see RFID to Revolutionize Coca-Cola’s Dispensers). The dispenser employs EPC Gen 2 Monza tag chips and Indy reader chips from Impinj, which partnered with The Coca-Cola Co. in 2009 to provide the RFID technology for the Coca-Cola Freestyle system (see RFID News Roundup: Coca-Cola Selects Impinj’s EPC Gen 2 Technology for RFID-enabled Drink Dispenser). For Burger King, the ability to customize beverages “further enhances our guests’ experience when they visit Burger King restaurants,” said Steve Wiborg, Burger King Corp.’s president for North America, in a prepared statement. “We’re excited to be the largest franchise system in the U.S. to roll out the fountains in all company-owned restaurants and look forward to further growing our business with Coca-Cola as our partner.”
Cadi Scientific Integrates Its RFID System With Intelligent InSites’ Software
Intelligent InSites, a provider of enterprise real-time location system (RTLS) software designed to help hospitals improve patient care and operational performance, has announced a partnership with Cadi Scientific, a Singapore-based RTLS hardware and software provider. Through the partnership, Cadi Scientific has integrated its RFID-enabled SmartSense system with Intelligent InSites’ software, which can collect real-time location and condition-sensing data from any type of RTLS technology, including active RFID, infrared/RF, passive RFID, ultrasound, Wi-Fi and ZigBee. Cadi Scientific’s SmartSense solution utilizes both active ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) tags (to track patients and some assets) and passive high-frequency (HF) 13.56 MHz tags complying with the ISO 15693 standard (for certain other assets that may require frequent cleaning and sterilization, and thus might not be able to accommodate a battery-powered tag). SmartSense is being used at the Prince Court Medical Center (PCMC), located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to protect infants within its facility, as well as a combination of passive and active tags to track equipment and other medical assets (see Malaysia’s Prince Court Medical Center Adopts RFID). The partnership with Intelligent InSites provides Cadi Scientific with a faster and more efficient way to access new markets and help new customers, according to Lim Soh Min, Cadi’s chief marketing officer.Waldemar Winckel Partners With UPM RFID to Provide NFC Tags Through Touch2go Netstore
Waldemar Winckel, an RFID label manufacturer and system integrator headquartered in Bad Berleburg, Germany, has entered into an agreement regarding the delivery of UPM RFID Near Field Communication (NFC) inlays through Waldemar Winckel’s Touch2go online netstore. Touch2go is designed to enable small companies, startups and entrepreneurs to utilize NFC technology so that they can develop and introduce NFC applications, the two companies report. Depending on their needs, businesses can order various NFC products, such as self-adhesive tags, hangtags, posters, postcards or on-metal tags for marketing, loyalty applications or customer promotions. According to UPM RFID and Waldemar Winckel, customers can purchase an extensive variety of NFC tag products through Touch2go, either in small or large quantities. Winckel’s NFC products can be employed across a range of application areas, including brand protection, marketing, location-based services, loyalty programs and mobile payment. For the NFC products available at the Touch2go site, Winckel utilizes UPM RFID inlays, including the BullsEye, Circus and RaceTrack models. “Everyone is talking about NFC,” said Jörg Bald, Waldemar Winckel’s CEO, in a prepared statement. “Many are asking how they can use this technology for their own purposes. Our new web shop is fuelling the development of NFC solutions. Anyone can afford our labels—even small restaurants, web shops or merchants. Tapping an NFC tag with your NFC device makes it possible to download websites, videos, music or specific product information—or simply information about the location or objects.”
Identification Systems Group and Partners Unveil Smart-Card Printing and Encoding Solution
www.IdentificationSystemsGroup.com Identification Systems Group (ISG), a nationwide network of local system integrators focused on identification, security, emergency response and card personalization, has announced that its strategic partners—Datacard Group and Salamander Technologies—have completed the integration of Salamander’s resourceMGR credentialing software with Datacard’s CD800 desktop card printer, thereby enabling smart-card encoding and print personalization in a single solution. ResourceMGR is part of Salamander’s interTRAX suite of incident-management solutions for identifying and tracking first responders and industrial-safety workers. Salamander Technologies now employs secure smart-card tracking across its entire product line, from ID card creation to data capture in the field—including the use of Motorola Solutions‘ new MC75 mobile computer that can read high-frequency (HF) 13.56 MHz passive RFID tags and supports the ISO 14443 (A, B and B-Innovatron), ISO 15693, ISO 18000-3 and FeliCa protocols. The Datacard CD800—an enterprise-class desktop card printer that supports an optional smart-card reader module, with an HID Global iClass read-write encoder—is designed to handle higher volumes of cards for state and local governments, as well as corporate and educational card issuance. With integrated smart-card encoding, ISG reports, the CD800 card printer can print up to 220 full-color, one-sided cards—or up to 165 two-sided cards—per hour, and offers a modular design enabling users to add field-upgradable features and encoding technologies. “We are thrilled to have an integrated smart card capability with the Datacard CD800,” said Russ Miller, Salamander Technologies’ president, in a prepared statement. “The foundation of our tracking solution is high-capacity ID cards—and the CD800 is an industry-leading platform for providing smart card credentials to the broader public and industrial safety markets across the world.”
STMicroelectronics Produces Wafer Employing Fully Contactless Testing
Global semiconductor firm STMicroelectronics (ST) has announced the successful production of a semiconductor wafer, the dice of which were fully tested wirelessly, without contact probes. According to ST, this innovation enables a wafer containing chips, such as RFID ICs, to be tested using electromagnetic waves as the sole link to the wafer’s array of circuits. In turn, the company reports, the method will produce higher yields, shorter testing times and lower product costs. Additionally, contactless testing allows RF circuits to be tested under conditions that are close to those of the actual application. The method, according to STMicroelectronics—known as electromagnetic wafer sort (EMWS)—is an evolution of electrical wafer sort (EWS), the last stage of wafer fabrication before assembly and testing of the final packaged products. At this stage in the manufacturing cycle, the processed wafer contains an array of identical circuits, known as dice. A probe card connected to Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) is moved over each die and, in turn, the microscopic probes make contact with test pads on the die. The ATE then performs its tests to confirm that the die is fully functional, thereby allowing any non-functional dice to be discarded before assembly and packing. With EMWS, each individual die contains a tiny antenna, while the ATE supplies power and communicates with the dice via electromagnetic waves. This approach reduces the number of test pads on each die, STMicroelectronics explains, significantly thus shrinking die size. While probes are still required to supply power to test high-power products, the company says the EMWS technique enables fully contactless testing of low-power circuits. The EMWS technology is the result of a research and development (R&D) project called UHF TAG Antenna Magnetically Coupled to Integrated Circuit (UTAMCIC), led by Alberto Pagani, Giovanni Girlando and Alessandro Finocchiaro, from STMicroelectronics, and Professor Giuseppe Palmisano, from Italy’s University of Catania. “This breakthrough in testing technology demonstrates ST’s commitment to our zero-failure policy and especially benefits customers using our low-power RF circuits,” said Pagani, from ST’s Test R&D and Competitive Intelligence division, in a prepared statement. “Contactless testing improves test coverage and, because the RF circuits, anticollision protocol and embedded antenna are tested under the same conditions they will operate under in the customer’s application, it will significantly enhance quality and reliability.”