Alien Technology Corporation today announced that it is extending the benefits of its breakthrough LoadImage high-speed RFID tag programming technology to the entire UHF RFID Reader industry, so that any vendor’s Gen2 RFID reader can now be configured to program and lock an Alien Gen2 RFID tag in approximately 23 milliseconds. Representing a 10X improvement over prevailing Gen2 RFID tag programming times, the use of LoadImage enables RFID tag commissioning and labeling to now be integrated into customers’ high-speed manufacturing processes without slowing down the throughput of manufacturing lines.

     Alien is making available a document entitled Alien Technology? LoadImage Command Application Note 1 that can be used by RFID reader and tag programmer manufacturers to support select enhanced features of the Alien Technology Gen2 integrated circuit (IC). Intended for software engineers involved in writing reader code, the application note documents how to program the complete NVM memory of the Alien Gen2 IC and lock it in a single write operation using a single custom command. This is in contrast to the standard Gen2 write command required by competing RFID ICs that must be repeated 12 times for a total of 12 distinct write cycles. The result of having a single write cycle is dramatically increased throughput for RFID label printers and applicators, and for assembly lines.

     "The Alien Gen2 IC with its unique single LoadImage command solves a major problem for RFID customers—that is, how to economically commission RFID tags, especially item-level tags, at production line speeds,” said Scot Stelter, Director Product Marketing, Alien Technology. “Since its introduction in October, the Alien Gen2 IC has experienced excellent market traction, due in part to its accelerated commissioning capability, which heretofore has only been leverageable using Alien RFID Readers. Given the massive customer ROI benefits, we believe it is important to the global uptake of RFID that we extend the ability to leverage a single LoadImage command to all Gen2 RFID reader and tag programmer and label printing system vendors.”

     The Alien LoadImage command writes all required EPC code as well as Kill, Access and Lock codes in a single cycle of approximately 23 milliseconds in typical production applications using an Alien ALR-9800 Enterprise RFID Reader. Tests with other manufacturer’s readers tag programming devices have exhibited similar results, stemming from the elimination of multiple write commands and their associated overhead.

     "Until now, Generation 2 RFID tags have taken up to 240 milliseconds to encode, but when manufacturing lines reach speeds of around 400 items per minute, it''s important that per tag programming times drop dramatically," said Kevin Ashton, Vice President of Marketing at ThingMagic, a leading provider of RFID readers and encoders. "We are looking forward to incorporating advanced capabilities like LoadImage into our Mercury family of agile readers, including our new Mercury 5e reader module, so that our customers can benefit from valuable and advanced features like this"

     EPCglobal certified in June, 2006, the Alien Gen2 IC (code named “Higgs”) has been available in production volumes since November. In addition to supporting programming speeds up to ten times faster than previous Gen2 ICs, the Alien Gen2 IC delivers over 2 db more sensitivity than previously available passive UHF RFID ICs, which results in an average 30% range advantage depending on application. This in turn enables more reliable tag performance and enables Alien Gen2 tags to work more effectively on different types and sizes of products.

     The Alien Technology LoadImage Command Application Note 1 can be downloaded from www.alientechnology

About Alien Technology

     Alien Technology provides UHF Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) products and services to customers in retail, consumer goods, manufacturing, defense, transportation and logistics, pharmaceuticals and other industries. Organizations use Alien''s RFID products and services to improve the effectiveness, efficiency and security of their supply chains, logistics and asset tracking operations. Alien''s products include RFID tags, RFID readers and related training and professional services. Alien''s patented Fluidic Self Assembly (FSATM) technology and related proprietary manufacturing processes are designed to enable the manufacture of high volume, low cost RFID tags.

     Alien was founded in l994 and employs about 235 people worldwide. The company''s facilities include: its corporate headquarters in Morgan Hill, CA; an RFID tag manufacturing facility in Fargo, ND; the Alien RFID Solutions Center, in the Dayton, Ohio area, and sales offices in the US, Europe and Asia. Alien is a member of EPCglobal. More information about Alien is available at www.alientechnology.com.

     Alien, Alien Technology, the Alien logo and FSA, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Alien Technology Corporation in the United States and other countries.

 

 

                                                                                                             Extract From Business Wire