Impinj Advances Industry with Monza® 4 Tag Chip Family

Impinj has once again advanced the RFID industry; this time by producing a new family of RFID tag integrated circuits (ics) that significantly improve performance, add privacy protection, and secure memory (read the Impinj press release below). These are ISO-18000-6C and EPCglobal Class 1 Generation 2 compatible ICs used in RFID tags and smart labels as well as packaged tag chips used on integrated circuit boards.

There are four members of the Monza 4 family, each comes with a variety of memory options, including both extended EPC and user memory (see table right).

There are a variety of memory options including large amounts of user-memory (512 bits with block permalock) or EPC-memory (496 bits). Now that there is a longer tag data standard (SGTIN-198) for tagging items such as electronics, the added memory is very important for supply chain operations.

All of the models include serialized Transponder ID (TID) numbers that also identify the IC model and manufacturer. The TID is programmed on the IC during fabrication and cannot be changed. TIDs make it extremely difficult for hackers to clone tags.

The ICs also have features Impinj has branded as True3D™ Antenna Technology and QT™ Technology.

True3D™ Antenna Technology

If you have ever performed read range testing on RFID tags, you know that when you turn a tag on an angle to the reader antenna, you can greatly reduce the read distance. The read range plot below left illustrates this: tags based on conventional tag chips can have blind spots—angles at which they are virtually invisible to a reader.

The Monza 4 family is designed to overcome this by introducing two fully independent antenna ports on the IC.

What True3D™ really means and why it is important

Compare the read range response of the Monza 4 tag (Impinj H42) above right to the Monza 3 tag (Impinj H32) and conventional tag chip responses. The response patterns are circular, showing no angle has significantly lower sensitivity than any other. At every angle, the read range has increased significantly. By having two fully independent antenna ports and appropriately designed tag antenna, readers see tags from any angle, resulting in higher read rates and theoretically, smaller, less expensive tags.

This also allows tag antenna designers to get creative. For example: since there is two completely different antenna ports on the chip, one set can be used for a near-field loop antenna and the other pair for a far-field antenna, essentially creating two tags in one.

Significant Performance Increases

PerformanceThe Monza 4 family has a 66% range improvement over the best performing competitive tag chip – while enabling complete orientation insensitivity. In terms of raw read performance, impinj states the Monza 4 family has an improvement of about 2db over the next closest competitor and coupled with dual antenna ports yields 66% further read range.

An important, and sometimes overlooked benchmark is write performance. Missing writes interferes with the production line and produces exceptions. The Monza 4 family can be written at more than twice the distance of the next closest competitor, which is significant from a reliability perspective.

QT™ Technology

These features provide the ability to maintain two data profiles to support protection of business-sensitive data and consumer privacy. Tag owners can use a private data profile to store confidential data, while a public data profile holds less sensitive information. The ability to switch between these two profiles is protected by the tag’s access password, physical distance from a reader antenna via a short range mode, or both.

What QT™ really means and why it is important:

Private/Public Profiles
In the Private Data Profile, users have access to several data/memory blocks: a private EPC memory, a serial number, an alternate product identifier, a serialized tag identifier (STID), and User memory. The Public Data Profile only contains the IC model information and the alternate product identifier. When a tag is switched to the Public Data Profile, all other data appears to be non-existent.

Short-Range Mode
If you're among the privacy advocates worried thieves are going to drive around your neighborhood with RFID readers scanning homes for RFID tags of expensive products, this feature is for you.

Short-Range Mode adds a layer of physical protection to a user’s private data by reducing the tag’s read range to less than one-tenth of its normal range. So while a reader can always singulate the tag and read its currently exposed identifier (EPC or alternate product identifier) from normal range, any attempts to access the Private Data Profile from a distance will cause the tag to lose power and drop out of its dialog with the reader. The short-range feature ensures that protected information is not readable unless the tag is very close to a reader antenna.

How this Impacts the Monza 3

Impinj states they have no planned end-of-life date for Monza 3 and expects to continue shipping Monza 3 into 2012. Both Monza 3 and the Monza 4 family will coexist in the market for some time.

Price

Monza ICs are provided to inlay vendors at competitive prices. Within the Impinj Monza family, the legacy Monza 3 is the least expensive product, with the various Monza 4 chips’ prices reflecting their premium levels of performance, functionality and memory, up to Monza 4QT, which offers both the largest memory and the highest level of additional functionality.

For more information, visit the Impinj website.

The official Monza 4 press release from Impinj:

Impinj Monza® 4 Tag Chip Family Raises Bar in RFID Performance and Privacy
New chips feature True3D™ and QT™ technologies, delivering dramatic RFID application improvements

Seattle, Washington, February 23, 2010 – Impinj, Inc., the world’s leading UHF Gen 2 radio frequency identification (RFID) technology provider, today announced availability of the Monza 4 family of premium tag chips, comprising four high-performance configurations: Monza 4D, 4E, 4U and 4QT. The Monza 4 family combines the industry’s highest read and write reliability, expanded memory and innovative privacy technology to deliver significant benefits for businesses desiring fast RFID investment payback and ongoing operational improvements.

To complement Impinj’s industry-leading Monza 3 chip, targeted at cost-sensitive applications that require only basic UHF Gen 2 functionality, the Monza 4 family of tag chips provide enhancements in performance, privacy and memory:

• Performance: Leveraging Impinj’s patent-pending True3D antenna technology, Monza 4 chips boast the industry’s highest read reliability – 66% range improvement over the best performing competitive tag chip – while enabling complete orientation insensitivity for the first time. All Monza 4 chips have two fully independent antenna ports, eliminating tags’ blind spots and significantly increasing read and write reliability in real-world applications where tag orientation is hard to control, such as in retail, baggage handling and asset tracking.
• Privacy: Impinj’s revolutionary QT technology, at the heart of Monza 4QT, protects confidential information by maintaining two separate data profiles (public and private) and allowing the tag owner to control data exposure. The chip’s private mode reveals all data, while the public mode conceals confidential data and replaces the tag’s EPC with a generic, user-defined number. A password can be required to switch between public and private modes. Additionally, QT technology enables the owner to selectively switch the tag into a short-range mode in which private profile data is accessible only at a very short range. This enhanced security helps prevent unauthorized readers from retrieving private data, further protecting both the business’ confidential data and, in the case of retail applications, consumer privacy.
• Memory:  The Monza 4 family offers memory options including 512 bits of user memory or up to 496 bits of EPC memory. Extended user memory provides a portable, but private database to travel with the tag and supports applications where a reliable database connection is not available. Extended EPC memory enables compliance with regional and industry-segment mandates that require greater than 96-bit EPC numbers such as employed in the SGTIN198 tag data standard.

“The Monza 4 family builds on the leading performance, quality and reliability users have experienced from Impinj since we introduced the world’s first Gen 2 chip, Monza 1, back in 2005,” said William T. Colleran, Ph.D., president and CEO of Impinj. “Monza 4 chips provide users with unmatched read and write reliability and flexible memory options on a common platform, helping RFID applications deliver better business results.”

Monza 4 tag chips benefit numerous end-use applications, including item-level apparel tagging, asset tracking, personal experience & safety, material handling, logistics, chain of custody and others that demand measurable business process improvements from RFID investments.  The superior read and write reliability enabled by True3D technology allow system integrators and value-added resellers to demonstrate meaningful returns on investment and derive more business from their RFID offerings. In addition, QT technology enables emerging applications that require greater security for confidential data. Inlay vendors can now develop a complete family of high-performance tags with many functional options based on a family of chips sharing common interface characteristics. Monza 4 chips offer converters the ability to provide tags with the highest performance and a full range of functional choices, ensuring successful participation in vendor selection and bake-off testing by end users and integrators.

“We are excited to offer the Monza 4 family of chips in the Avery Dennison RFID product line,” said Jack Farrell, vice president of the RFID Division at Avery Dennison. “With new, innovative features like True3D and QT technologies, Monza 4 will help our customers quickly reduce costs, increase sales and boost productivity.”

“The use of passive UHF RFID technology is an expanding market opportunity attracting significant user interest within organizations looking to more effectively manage and track their assets, inventory, and much more,” states Michael Liard, research director for RFID at ABI Research (Oyster Bay, NY).  “We believe the increased availability of feature-rich passive UHF RFID IC offerings that are optimized for high performance, such as the Monza 4 family, is critical to enabling user adoption across a broad range of applications.”

All four Monza 4 tag configurations, Monza 4D, 4E, 4U and 4QT are available today, and combined with Impinj’s industry-leading Monza 3 product, the Monza family provides a complete range of features (detailed in the table below) to enable current and emerging applications.  Many of the world’s leading RFID inlay manufacturers, including Avery Dennison, Invengo, SMARTRAC, and UPM Raflatac are currently developing Monza 4-based inlays.

Impinj Monza® 4 Tag Chip Models

About Impinj, Inc.
Impinj, Inc. is the world’s leading technical innovator in developing UHF Gen 2 RFID solutions for both item-level and supply-chain tagging. Impinj draws on its technical expertise and industry partnerships to deliver a wide range of products and solutions comprising high-performance tag chips, readers, reader chips, software, antennas and systems integration. Impinj’s products provide unprecedented performance, integration and cost effectiveness to a global customer base across numerous vertical markets with applications including inventory management, asset tracking, authentication and serialization. For more information, visit www.impinj.com.