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Feature
of the Month:
In this issue:
| Feature:
TI Names Julie England
General Manager of RFID Systems Group
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 Julie
England has been named general manager of Texas Instruments’
radio frequency identification (RFID) Systems group,
a business unit of Texas Instruments Sensors &
Controls Division. Previously, she was a general manager
of TI’s Sun business within the Semiconductor
group, and has been a TI vice president since 1994.
England will replace David Slinger who is retiring
in July 2004 after 32 years with the company. She
will report to Tom Wroe, president of TI Sensors &
Controls.
England will direct TI’s worldwide RFID business,
which provides market-leading transponder and reader
technology to identify, track and secure assets in
applications including retail and supply chain logistics,
wireless payment, access control, document tracking,
healthcare, product authentication, sports timing
and ticketing.
“RFID is an exciting and dynamic market that
presents tremendous growth opportunities for Texas
Instruments,” said England. “We are committed
to delivering highly reliable solutions to our customers,
including products that meet EPC and ISO standards.”
England joins Sensors & Controls after more than
20 years in TI’s Semiconductor business having
held a variety of leadership positions in product
engineering, wafer fabs, quality and business management.
England is a graduate of Texas Tech University’s
College of Engineering, and the Stanford University
Executive Program in Strategy and Organization.
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ChampionChip
Introduces New Line of LF Readers
Netherlands-based ChampionChip, the developer
of the ChampionChip RFID sports timing system used to automatically
time millions of athletes annually in races from marathons
to mountain biking, has recently launched a new line of
low-frequency (LF) RFID readers for non-sports applications
in markets including livestock, logistics and healthcare.
CC Industry, ChampionChip’s industrial business unit,
is offering a series of readers for companies integrating
LF RFID technology in highly metallic environments, or those
with a large amount of electromagnetic noise.
Featuring digital signal processor (DSP) technology from
Texas Instruments, CC Industry’s readers allow more
signal enhancing algorithms to be applied in real time,
helping improve the signal-to-noise ratio and filtering
out any electromagnetic noise to find the correct transponder
signal. ChampionChip first developed this reader technology
to enable race timing on metal surfaces such as bridges,
which may interfere with the ability to read individual
transponders.
CC Industry is offering the Prompter 102, with one transmitting
and two receiving antennas for small RFID applications;
the Orator 204, with two transmitting antennas and up to
four receiving antennas for medium-sized applications; and
the Stentor 216, with two transmitting antennas and up to
16 receiving antennas for high-volume applications. Multiple
receiving antennas allow greater quantities of transponders
to be read in a short amount of time. All three readers
can read 134.2 kHz Texas Instruments RFID transponders from
a distance of up to one meter. They can be set to maximum
output power levels based on national regulations, feature
RS 485 point-to-point communication, and are available with
TCP/IP over Ethernet capabilities.
To learn more about CC Industry and its new line of RFID
readers, please
contact Jacob Beeksma, business development manager, at
+31 24 37 91 244 or info@ccindustry.com.
Additional information is also available at www.ccindustry.com.
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InfoWave
Solutions and Vanguard ID Systems Join Team
Tag-it
 Texas
Instruments recently added InfoWave Solutions, a provider
of RFID middleware and integration services, and Vanguard
ID Systems, a manufacturer of custom made RFID cards, key
tags and labels, to its growing list of Team Tag-it™
member companies.
“The Team Tag-it program will enable us to offer our
innovative RFID process, location and integration solutions
to a larger market,” said Rich McGillicuddy, president
of InfoWave Solutions.
The Indianapolis-based company’s Activate Software
Suite will use data from Texas Instruments’ RFID tags
and readers to create cost-effective solutions for applications
requiring passive RFID. InfoWave offers end-user solutions
for inventory management, asset tracking, real-time asset
allocation, and automatic process monitoring across a unified,
intuitive interface.
“As a leading manufacturer of Teslin RFID cards and
key tags, becoming a member of TI’s Team Tag-it program
will create new opportunities for us to work with systems
integrators and other members of the network on RFID implementations,”
said Vic Murray, national sales manager for Vanguard ID
Systems.
Pennsylvania-based Vanguard ID Systems’ 13.56 MHz
ISO 15693 and ISO 14443 compliant RFID cards, key tags and
labels are currently in use in applications such as building
and parking access, expedited retail check out programs,
personalized vending programs and vending machines, contactless
payment programs at major league sports venues, as well
as pharmacy, grocery and mall customer loyalty programs.
Available in a variet y
of configurations, shapes and sizes, Vanguard’s RFID
products can easily be combined with a magnetic stripe or
a barcode to facilitate the transition from legacy systems
to a more enhanced RFID solution, providing multiple options
for end users. In addition customers can create a unique
solution with Vanguard’s flexible multi-layer design,
using graphics to personalize their RFID cards or keyfobs.
For more information on these new Team Tag-it members, please
visit InfoWave’s Web site at www.infowavesolutions.com
and Vanguard’s site at www.vanguardid.com.
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Multi-Function
Reader Module Offers True Interoperability Across HF Standards
 With
the development of 13.56 MHz RFID standards, end users for
smart label, payment, transit, access control, logical access
and other proximity communication applications expect that
their RFID infrastructure be fully interoperable, allowing
them to use tags or transponders from a range of providers.
Texas Instruments has responded to this end-user need with
its S4100 Multi-Function Reader (MFR) Module. This highly
flexible device accepts all ISO/IEC 14443 and ISO/IEC 15693
standards-compliant 13.56 MHz RFID transponders, while providing
an easy migration path to support current tags not fully
compliant to these standards.
The MFR’s unique software architecture enables users
to download firmware upgrades down to the ISO standard protocol
level when specifications are adjusted or new standards
are added, without changing the hardware residing in the
finished reader. This capability allows end-users to make
RFID reader infrastructure investments today without worrying
about reader hardware obsolescence when new applications
are introduced or ISO standards are modified or developed.
With its flexible architecture and scalability to a variety
of form factors, from circuit boards to embeddable modules,
the Multi-Function Reader provides systems integrators,
reader manufacturers, distributors, and design engineers
an adaptable reader technology for open RFID infrastructure
implementations. Competing readers would have to be dismantled
and reconfigured at the board level in order to make these
adjustments.
“Quickly updating RFID reader firmware to handle variations
in standards and transponders or new specs as they are developed
is of utmost importance to our systems integrator and reader
manufacturer customers,” said V.C. Kumar, strategy
manager for wireless commerce, TI-RFid Systems. “With
our MFR reader technology, they can then guarantee that
their RFID readers are truly interoperable across transponder
and proximity integrated circuit chip (PICC) suppliers and
protocols, and that future advancements in high frequency
standards can be easily incorporated in the system down
the road.”
TI’s MFR Module is easy to integrate into existing
infrastructures and supports multi-applications such as
payment, loyalty and many smart label applications. The
new reader features an open software platform so that a
range of application and security architectures can be designed
in depending on the specific needs of the application. The
design is also highly scalable to support custom requirements
from plug-in to fully packaged solutions.
For more information visit www.ti-rfid.com
or call 1-888-937-6536 (North America) or 1-972-575-4364
(International).
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