Tampere, Finland – April 27, 2009 – Confidex, a fast growing company with unique expertise in RFID design, manufacturing and engineering, announced today at RFID Journal Live! in Orlando the launch of the Confidex SteelBYTE.  The Confidex SteelBYTE   complements the most versatile IT Asset Tag portfolio in the market.

RFID reduces the need for human intervention in the IT asset inventory process and makes it much quicker than  traditional barcode technology. Additional motivation to utilize RFID in IT Asset Management (ITAM) is the ability to increase data security and operational efficiency by having asset location data available. . Improved financial accounting accuracy will also be achieved as well as compliance with legislation such as the Sarbanes Oxley Act. An RFID tag’s EPC number is often used as a flag to pinpoint the asset information and its history data from a database. However, some RFID ITAM applications could require that above mentioned data be available regardless of whether there is a connection to the database or not – for example, 96 bits EPC code wouldn’t be enough to store asset firmware details or hardware configuration data and the asset serial number.

Today, Confidex launched the SteelBYTE, which is designed for high memory applications by equipping it with Alien Higgs3 IC. In addition to 96 bit EPC, the SteelBYTE has 512 bits user memory and a unique tag identifier number...The SteelBYTE also features extended read range. With a footprint of only 0.5 x 1.5 inches, the maximum read range reaches an outstanding 13 feet on metal with the capability of also functioning on plastic surfaces. .Such improved tag performance is realized by the tag’s ability to be read with lower output power from the reader than what was possible before. With these features, the Confidex SteelBYTE complements Confidex’s IT Asset Tag portfolio consisting of Confidex Steelwave Micro™, Confidex SteelBIT, Confidex SteelBYTE, and Confidex SteelWING.

Like the earlier released Confidex SteelBIT, Confidex SteelBYTE is personalized according to FSTC (Financial Services Technical Consortium) requirements for banking industry by having pre-encoded EPC code in the tag’s memory and a data label showing the EPC code in both numbers and 2D data matrix barcode. SteelBYTE is designed especially for the RFID IT asset management market in the USA, so it is available in FCC (902-928MHz) version.“The common attributes of Confidex’s IT asset tags are innovativeness, first-class performance and cost-effectiveness which makes them the ideal choice for IT asset tagging applications” says Hanna Kosunen, Product Line Manager at Confidex.

Confidex IT asset tag portfolio will be presented at RFID Journal Live! in Orlando from 27-29 April 2009 at Confidex booth 402.

 

About Confidex

Confidex, headquartered in Tampere, Finland, is a fast growing company with unique expertise in RFID design, manufacturing and system engineering. With offices in Europe, North America and China, Confidex provides high-performing, industry-standard RFID tags for demanding applications. The company’s highly experienced team has enabled Confidex to quickly become the trusted partner for major vendors and end-users in the RFID industry.

Confidex's core competencies and experience span HF (high frequency) and UHF (ultra high frequency) antenna design, tag manufacturing, and advanced tag conversion and encapsulation.

For more information, visit www.confidex.net.

Tampere, Finland – April 20th, 2009 – Confidex, a fast growing company with unique expertise in RFID design, manufacturing and engineering, today announced the launch of its latest RFID tag innovation Confidex SteelWING, a passive UHF C1G2 special label that is capable to function directly on metal surfaces with superior performance.

 

Metallic asset’s tracking, item level tagging, metal RTI’s (returnable transport item) or plastic RTI’s with highly metal content… All of these are very familiar applications where potential RFID users face obstacles to find a tag that is simultaneously well-performing, easily installable and cost-effective. Due to the traditional problem of RFID labels’ inability to function on metal surface, there have been challenges to go forward in those applications where on-metal hard tags can’t be used, although the benefits of RFID-enabled tracking system would be already clear and short return-of-investment time calculated.

With up to 10 meter (32ft) read range on metal surfaces, UHF Class 1 Generation 2 compliant Confidex SteelWING was designed to overcome the challenges of metal asset tagging. The key design targets; high performance, compact structure and cost-efficiency were achieved with SteelWING’s innovative patent pending design. The light-weight tag has adhesive background and it can be directly attached on metal surface – without any extra spacer material.

Before this, RFID labels could not be directly applied to metal. Many label solutions have been developed with the idea in mind that the RFID label has been lifted away from the proximity of metal surfaces. Typically such products work the better the more space is left in between tag and metal. But the drawback of such labels is that when antenna bends closer to metal and hence the distance to metal reduces, the RFID label performance decreases significantly. Instead of avoiding metal contact, contact between the metal and the antenna of Confidex SteelWING actually improves the operational performance. Unlike its competitive products, Confidex SteelWING is truly a “metal-friendly” RFID label.

SteelWING can also be attached to other materials and it can be operated still with slightly reduced performance compared to metal surfaces. Wide-band Confidex SteelWING is equipped with NXP G2XM IC which has extended user memory and Confidex can deliver the SteelWINGs with pre-encoding or customer specific data label showing visually the encoded data in barcode or human readable form.

Confidex SteelWING fits for various applications in many industries such as industrial returnable transit item tracking and IT asset management. Most often Confidex SteelWING is selected when the use of hard tags is non-justifiable due to the cost and when there’s no need for ultimate mechanical protection for the tag. Therefore Confidex SteelWING fills the gap in the market caused by the lack of suitable high-performance RFID labels for metal surfaces and therefore sets a new benchmark for the RFID industry.

“The feedback from our beta customers has been very promising as they needed a SteelWING type of product. This product is another great example of Confidex’s out-of-the box thinking.”, says Hanna Kosunen, Product Line Manager for Hard Tags and Special Labels at Confidex.

Confidex will be showcasing the new Confidex SteelWING UHF RFID tag at RFID Journal Live!, Booth 402, April 27-29 in Orlando, Florida.

Tampere, Finland – April 6th , 2009 – Confidex, a fast growing company with unique expertise in RFID design, manufacturing and engineering, today announced that it has shipped more than 10,000 of its Confidex Ironside UHF Gen2 Hard Tag to London Underground in the UK. The tags shipped via Confidex partner CoreRFID Ltd are to be used to improve escalator maintenance.

Although Confidex has shipped Ironside tags to several customers in substantially larger volumes, the London Underground application is of great relevance to other escalator operators around the world.  Maintenance and safety of escalators is important for Metro operators such as London Underground and for shopping malls and other public places.

The escalators of the London Underground carry more than three million passengers every day from the street to the platforms and back again.  Most commuters and tourists don’t give the travelling metal staircases a second thought; a fact that is a testament to the reliability of the system and the care taken over the maintenance of escalators. The steps that make up these escalators are subject to constant wear from the feet of passengers and from the mechanical movement on the escalator track.  A failure in an escalator step could cause serious injury. If an escalator step were to fail during rush hours, lives could be put at risk and serious disruption to travelers would result.

To prevent such an event, London Underground, has implemented an inspection / maintenance regime that ensures the structural integrity of every step is checked at least once during the course of every year.  With almost 30,000 escalator steps, in almost 200 escalators, needing to be checked this requires significant effort by London Underground’s engineering staff.

To address the need for faster, more accurate and more cost-efficient maintenance, London Underground decided to use RFID technology.  They selected CoreRFID Ltd, based in Warrington, UK as their solutions provider and Confidex for their tag expertise company.  A decision was made early on to use UHF Gen2 (ISO-18000-6C) technology as the only viable technology able to read tags attached on metal from a distance.

CoreRFID developed the “Step Tracking System” as the maintenance management solution. This uses PDA with RFID Reader (Nordic ID’s PL3000 ruggedized hand held reader) mounted on a cradle beside the escalator and application software to read and write information on the tag.  The choice of the ruggedized and extremely durable Confidex tag was seen as a key to the success of the pilot project..  “It was obvious to us that Confidex had the best solution here.  The tags to be used had to last in the very challenging environment of an operating escalator with vibration, temperature variation, grease and dirt as well as magnetic fields all being a factor. In consultation with Confidex we selected the Ironside Tag. We have more than 18 months experience with most of Confidex Hard Tags and Speciality Labels and we were confident about the choice.” says Richard Harrison, Technical Sales Director of CoreRFID.

“The tags are installed under the steps, attached with acrylic adhesive provided by Confidex and in spite of the very tough environment and constant movement, not a single Ironside Tag detached from its escalator step over the two months long trial period” continues Richard. “However, in the future all new steps will come from manufacture with tags riveted on them.”

Operational deployment has now started across the Bakerloo, Central, and Victoria lines and other underground stations where London Underground is responsible for escalator maintenance.

“This has been a very good collaboration between our three organizations.   We are very pleased to see a well managed project from idea to trial and pilot moving to a full scale roll out,” said Torbjörn Andersson, Confidex Vice President of Sales & Business Development.  “There are clear advantages for London Underground in using RFID.  Having an automated system that provides essential data without interrupting escalator use is something many other users and operators of escalators can take advantage of.  Operators and maintainers looking for improved Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul for their escalators and travelators can look to Confidex and CoreRFID who will publish a case study of the application in the near future.”

Confidex Ironside is a “Hard Tag” in Impact resistant material.  It is among the most durable, on-metal, high temperature resistant Gen2 tags available to date.  The tag, which use NXP’s G2XM chip featuring 240bit EPC, UID and 512bits of user memory, was an early recipient of SAE’s AS5678 certification.“The flagship Confidex Ironside Hard Tag is already used in a variety of applications, on metal containers, airline food carts, postal roll cages, power transformers, stillages in automotive manufacturing and on road maintenance equipment to mention a few said Torbjörn Andersson.”

A complete Technical Product Specification including installation guide is downloadable from Confidex website.

About Confidex

Confidex, headquartered in Tampere, Finland, is a fast growing company with unique expertise in RFID design, manufacturing and system engineering. With offices in Europe, North America and China, Confidex provides high-performing, industry-standard RFID tags for demanding applications. The company’s highly experienced team has enabled Confidex to quickly become the trusted partner for major vendors and end-users in the RFID industry.

Confidex's core competencies and experience span HF (high frequency) and UHF (ultra high frequency) antenna design, tag manufacturing, and advanced tag conversion and encapsulation.  For more information, visit www.confidex.net.

About CoreRFID

CoreRFID, based in Warrington, UK is a specialist solution integrator and distributor for RFID applications and technology. CoreRFID develops and implements RFID solutions across healthcare, transport, facilities management, government and high-value manufacturing. The company has delivered applications for asset management, health and safety monitoring, pick and pack manufacturing and plant maintenance.CoreRFID’s principal capabilities are in RFID technology selection, mobile computing platforms and solution design, development and deployment, working in conjunction with major clients and integrating where necessary with existing back office systems. CoreRFID also operates a web shop outlet and distribution facility.For more information, visit  http://www.corerfid.com or www.rfidshop.com

Tampere, Finland – February 17, 2009 – Confidex, a fast growing company with unique expertise in RFID design, manufacturing and engineering, today announced that the latest member of its C1G2 UHF hard tag family, SteelBIT, has been developed based on the Steelwave Micro™ tag to be compliant with Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC) RFID tagging requirements.

In January 2009, FSTC, a consortium of leading North American-based financial institutions, technology vendors, independent research organizations, and government agencies, concluded its RFID IT Data Center Asset Tracking project. According to FSTC, the consortium’s goal is to bring forward, test, prove, and validate the next generation of critical financial services technologies and how they can be applied industry wide. The RFID project outlined a set of requirements which will enable more efficient tracking and handling of IT assets in the data centers. Requirements include a detailed pre-encoding scheme, human and machine readability specifications, as well as, a list of tag performance requirements.

“Confidex has been an integral member of the FSTC RFID IT Data Center Asset Tracking Project team,” said John Fricke, FSTC Vice President and Chief of Staff. “The Confidex SteelBIT has demonstrated performance that meets the RFID Tag requirements as defined by the project.”

Starting in February 2009, Confidex SteelBIT will be available based on the RFID tagging requirements of IT assets in the financial industry. Confidex will offer SteelBIT as pre-encoded according to the FSTC encoding scheme and will supply the tag with the specific layout, which consists of the printed 2D data matrix and number series showing the tag IC data. Customer logos can also be included if needed. In addition, the SteelBIT tag meets FSTC’s RFID tag range performance requirements (3 ft. reading range for handheld readers and 6 ft reading range for fixed readers).

“The FSTC, having defined Data Center Asset tracking requirements, facilitates efficient RFID implementation by identifying and standardizing key functional and numbering requirements,” said Torbjörn Andersson, Confidex Vice President Worldwide Sales, Business Development & Market Communications. “Confidex was honored to participate in the FSTC RFID Project and is pleased to offer the SteelBIT as an FSTC-compliant RFID tag.”

Since its inception, Confidex Steelwave Micro™ , featuring excellent performance (9.8ft / 3m), small footprint (1.5" x 0.5"/38mm x 13mm), IP67 protection class, and suitability for both on-metal and non-metal applications, has proven its efficiency and reliability in both IT asset management and other valuable asset tracking applications. And now, Confidex SteelBIT leads the way as an FSTC-compliant RFID tag.

The cost-efficient Confidex SteelBIT tag with its superior characteristics and high quality construction will now enable the financial industry to easily implement a passive UHF RFID tracking solution for IT assets, which has been widely recognized within the industry as critically important.

In addition to IT asset management within the financial community, Confidex SteelBIT is ideal for any valuable asset tracking application and can be customized based on customer-specific encoding and printing requirements.

Confidex SteelBIT, now FSTC-compliant, joins the growing family of unique Confidex RFID tags that have been successfully used in a variety of demanding applications such as identification of IT assets, vehicles, rail cars, and reusable transit items, in motion, from arctic to subtropical regions. Confidex, offering unique, customized RFID tracking solutions.

For more information on the FSTC RFID tagging requirements, visit http://www.fstc.org/projects/index.php?id=29

Tampere, Finland  - March 3rd 2009 – CONFIDEX LTD, the leading supplier of RFID tickets and tags, headquartered in Finland, today announced the launch of a new family of Limited use Contactless tickets with extended memory and increased security features. 

The Confidex SafeRide™ product family uses NXP’s new MIFARE Ultralight C as the chip of choice. MIFARE Ultralight C has 192 bytes of memory and offers enhanced protection from counterfeiting. With 3DES, the chip uses a widely adopted open standard for authentication, thus enabling easy integration in existing contactless ticketing infrastructures.

While the popularity of public transportation is growing rapidly, there have been concerns by the authorities how secure the system can be from counterfeiting. Contactless technology has shown to be an excellent solution compared e.g. to magnetic stripe tickets, especially due to faster transactions and higher security features.
The extended memory enables transit operators to develop new services, like Park&Ride, into the same Limited Use Ticket.

As a leader in the contactless ticket market, Confidex strengthen their position by offering the new ticket products with unique cloning protection features, but still having full compliancy with the industry standards making the integration easy for the solution developers.

“Contactless technology is the de facto selection for any new fare collection solutions. The adoption of contactless tickets for limited use is also growing very rapidly. The benefits of faster and more reliable transactions for commuters, combined with RFID technology’s security and flexibility to develop new fare schemes, provide a value proposition that meets the demands to serve the growing mass transit passenger volumes. Since its establishment in 2005 Confidex’s focus has been to serve the Limited Use Ticket market and we have become the world leader in that market, measured by our delivery volumes and quality”, says Confidex Vice President of Product Management, Petteri Lavikko.

“As the global leader in contactless security ICs, NXP is pleased that Confidex selects our latest MIFARE Ultralight C IC to design ticket solutions with enhanced security and flexibility”, said Henri Ardevol, general manager, automatic fare collection, NXP Semiconductors. “With this chip NXP is setting a new industry benchmark by introducing open standard 3DES cryptography authentication into the low cost contactless IC segment. The unique features of the MIFARE Ultralight C enables transport operators to expand their service offering beyond the traditional ticketing market, such as loyalty and prepaid services as well as NFC-enabled applications. “ 

About Confidex

Confidex, headquartered in Tampere, Finland, is a fast growing company with unique expertise in Limited Use Contactless Ticket design, manufacturing and personalization. With offices in Europe, North America and China, Confidex has quickly become the trusted partner for major vendors and end-users in the contactless ticketing industry.

Confidex's core competencies and experience span antenna design, inlay manufacturing, ticket converting and personalization.