EM Microelectronic, a company of the Swatch Group has developed a UHF RFID integrated circuit, EM4223, which is fully compliant with the international standard ISO18000-6A and EPC 64-bit and 96-bit code structure.

The EM4223 is a high-performance 128-bit read-only UHF circuit with a robust anti-collision protocol. It is frequency-independent from 865 MHz to 2.5 GHz and is compliant with worldwide radio regulations. It works with very low radiated power in the United States, as well as Europe and Japan. The IC has been designed using EM advanced CMOS technology optimized for RFID and will be produced in EM's own fab in Switzerland. The circuit layout has been conceived for easy assembly by antenna manufacturers.

The IC can read tags at a distance above 15 meters when using an optimized transponder antenna. It also has an enhanced anti-collision protocol, which performs without saturation effect. With other RFID chips, it may happen that the reader saturates and is not able to read more than a certain number of tags because the transmission channel becomes saturated.

“The saturation limits of the transmission channel of EM4223 are extended to such a point that a reader is able to read more than 1000 tags simultaneously present in the field,” said Mougahed Darwish, president of the management board of EM Microelectronic. “Due to its high-speed, anti-collision feature, it is also possible to read 200 EM4223 tags per second. This high throughput will set new performance benchmarks, especially when operating under the prevailing ETSI regulation.”

EM4223 tags can also enter and/or leave the field without corrupting the anti-collision protocol itself, ensuring that all tags are read. This key feature is particularly important in logistics applications where tracked items are always in motion.

The Application Family Identifier (AFI) is a segment of the memory, in addition to the user memory, which defines families of items to be tracked as per ISO18000-6A. AFI allows a direct selection mechanism, enhancing the anticollision throughput and reducing the data flow on the network. With this feature embedded in EM4223, it is possible for a reader to make a reading only on one specified type of item while included as part of a group of different items. For instance, this feature is useful in the case of a pallet containing different types of goods and one wants to read only one type among all of the goods.

The Electronic Product Code (EPC) is a unique ID number that identifies a specific item in the supply chain. The EM4223 complies with the current EPC code specification with the possibility to encode the EPC64 or EPC96. The most popular EPC96 is the GTIN number, but any other can be placed within the 128-bit user data segment of EM4223.

For more information, visit www.emmicroelectronics.com.