The Chinese say it's The Year of The Dog, but in the market for the best Gen 2 RFID products, it's also the year for a doggone number of new choices.
Numerous vendors are hyping their latest RFID chips, readers, tags, printers and software, leaving buyers with an apparent wealth of options. But with every vendor peddling its Gen 2-compliant products as superior, buyers are left in a sea of confusion.
The eight-page white paper from Intermec, which makes its own suite of Intermec Gen 2 RFID systems, gives potential buyers a brief outline of the essential qualities one should look for when evaluating Gen 2 RFID products.
On Dec. 14, 2004, the EPCglobal Generation 2 RFID standard, with input from more than 60 companies, was ratified and approved by the EPC Global Committee, the not-for-profit standards organization representing the supply chain industry. Compared with previous generations, the latest specification is a huge improvement, with better read range and performance in crowded environments. Data storage is also better – the first generation had either 64 or 96 bits of information; Gen 2 RFID starts at 96 bits. And perhaps most importantly to buyers, Gen 2 specifies one standard only while the previous generation had two standards – Class 0 and Class 1.
Unlike barcodes, Gen 2 RFID doesn't just capture data to improve operations. It allows companies to capture information dynamically as assets move through a supply chain without the line-of-sight requirements of bar code scanning. And Gen 2 RFID includes technology that allows tags to be read from and written to along the way, ensuring accurate, up-to-the-minute information.
The RFID buyer's challenge, then, is to compare different readers, tags, and ancillary products. In its white paper, Intermec provides a detailed list of characteristics that differentiate the latest breed of RFID from previous versions. Gen 2 readers and tags are full of performance enhancements such as higher security and increased read speed, says Chris Kelley, director of RFID for Intermec and a contributor to the report.
Speed: According to Intermec, there is no firm or minimum speed specification within the Gen 2 standard, because reading speed depends on many variables, including power output, tag density and the RF environment. Gen 2 products have features that allow for speedier communications between readers and tags, such as "group select," a feature improves high-speed reading and data sorting.
Range: A single company's user requirements are the prime determinant for the range required from Gen 2 EPC systems, says Intermec. To illustrate: A company at one point in the supply chain may only need to capture pallet tag information from a few feet away with handheld readers before shipping the pallets to a customer. But at the next stop, tagged cases might be stacked high on warehouse shelves where much longer read range is required. According to Intermec, there is no mandated range requirement in the Gen 2 standard because of the many variables that effect range, such as interference, reader power output and reader density.
Security: "Gen 2 provides [security safeguards], whereas some Generation 1 products didn't provide security that users demand," Mr. Kelley says. These safeguards include the ability to kill a tag and the ability to encrypt or lock data onto a tag (writing data to a tag and then creating a password to prevent data from changing downstream by non-authenticated users). Another security feature, often called cloaking, refers to the architecture by which a reader only transmits encrypted data to a tag, keeping the data secure even if the signal is intercepted.
Perhaps the biggest consideration is a company's specific information needs.
Dirk Morgenroth, marketing manager of RFID for Philips Semiconductors, says he agrees with most of the important buyer criteria outlined in Intermec's white papers.
Philips makes Gen 2-compliant RFID chips that go into labels, tags and (potentially later) into readers. It benefits from the new specification because it can now forge partnerships with other technology providers using interoperable technology. Gen 2 also allows, among other things, the company to offer standardized chips for different applications, Mr. Morgenroth says.
The most important thing to keep in mind, no matter whose RFID product, is that it actually has been certified as Gen 2-compliant by EPC Global to ensure interoperability.
Philips, for example, has extra memory on some of its chip that can store extra data. For companies that rent pallets to manufacturers, it's an important feature because they need extra content that combines different EPC numbers onto a single chip.
For a copy of the white paper, "Will your EPC Gen 2 System Be up to Standard?", go to http://epsfiles.intermec.com/epsfiles/epswp/Gen2SysStand_wp_web.pdf.