A panel of ID industry experts provided predictions for 2005. One of these glimpses into the future will appear here each day during December.
Contactless technology has already been implemented successfully in mass transit and access control applications for several years. But contactless benefits pave the way for new applications in banking, government ID and RFID, three segments which should start on a larger scale in 2005.
ASK has developed an expertise in contactless technology with an innovative and unique technology and a scalable manufacturing process. Over 50 Million RFID products are already in the field based on the same simple and low cost process. Combining a silver printed antenna on a paper substrate and a process of flip chip, ASK also developed an industrial equipment which stands as a real breakthrough in the smart card and tag industry.
Instead of etching away material from the metal antenna, as it is usually done in the industry, ASK came up with an additive process by which a silver ink silk screen printed antenna is manufactured by adding material instead of etching it away. Cheaper, it is also environment friendly as the substrate is paper and possesses far better mechanical resistance to bending and twisting than copper antenna on plastic substrate since the antenna is the inlay. A smart paper label can also be personalized graphically the same way as bar code labels with a logo, serial number and other post-printing elements.
The real challenge was to put together an integrated manufacturing chain in a reel to reel process to optimize the production and make it seamless and cost effective. Our industrial equipment has been designed and scaled to address the mega volume demands of the RFID market. Smart labels are manufactured from A to Z on the same chain. Production capacity will reach 250 Million smart labels in 2005. We think that this process is the only one suited to supply low cost smart labels in the long term for the RFID market. Many libraries including the 17 libraries in Marseille, DHL Fashion Solution, Luxemburg cadastre and logistics clients have already used our C.label® and readers to secure their items and implement RFID in their supply chain. C.label complies with ISO14443, ISO15693, ISO18000-6 standards and EPC compliant class1 V1.
This technology has been awarded several times, the latest being the Sesame for ITSecurity with Smart Paper ID, a passport solution where the antenna is printed directly onto the passport cover, providing the thinnest and most integrated solution for secure ID documents.
Visit ASK on the web at www.ask.fr. ![[end]](/resources/bullet/archive-4.gif)
