Fujitsu Develops World's First 64KByte High-Capacity FRAM RFID Tag for Aviation Applications

- International standard-compliant tag enables highly efficient, precise global aircraft maintenance systems -

Tokyo, January 9, 2008 — Fujitsu Limited today announced the development of the world's first 64 kilobyte (KB) ultra-high frequency (UHF)-band radio frequency identification (RFID) tag with high-capacity FRAM⁽¹⁾, featuring memory capacity sufficient to store large volumes of aircraft part and maintenance history data, while supporting a number of different radio frequencies to enable traceability worldwide. Fujitsu anticipates that this 64KB UHF-RFID tag will transform global aircraft maintenance operations.

Equipped with 64KB FRAM memory, the world's highest capacity to date, Fujitsu's new RFID tag will enable highly efficient global aircraft maintenance operations by ensuring precise and rapid management of each aircraft part. The tag complies with the EPCglobal⁽²⁾ Class 1 Generation 2 standard supporting a variety of radio frequencies, which vary by region, and thus provides for global traceability.

Fujitsu's new UHF-RFID tags will deliver high-speed data writing capability and high durability, while also offering state-of-the-art security functions, such as password management for each part of the memory area.

Background

In recent years, the aviation industry has striven to raise the quality and efficiency of aircraft maintenance by improving traceability of parts. In line with this trend, a need has arisen for high-capacity RFID tags which can store not only part identification codes but also product and part maintenance history data.

To satisfy these needs, Fujitsu developed a 64 KB high-capacity RFID tag memory for the aviation industry. Fujitsu's new RFID tag will increase the quality and the efficiency of aircraft maintenance operations by enabling the traceability of various products and maintenance information for parts exchanged between companies and across nations around the world. Overall, customers will realize improved supply chain management through shorter cycle times and lower costs.

Sales of the RFID tag are scheduled to begin in the first quarter of fiscal year 2008 (April - June 2008).

Figure 1: Fujitsu's 64KB RFID tag

Glossary & Notes:

1 FRAM:

Ferroelectric Random Access Memory (also referred to as FeRAM). Memory that uses ferroelectric film as a capacitor for storing data. Featuring advantages of both ROM and RAM devices, FRAM features high-speed access, low power consumption, and high endurance for numerous rewrites.

2 EPCglobal:

EPCglobal is a non-profit organization established by GS1 (formerly known as EAN International), which promotes the international standardization of barcodes, and GS1 US™ (formerly the Uniform Code Council, Inc.).

3 SAE AS5678:

Issued by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) in December 2006, SAE AS5678 is a standard defining environmental specifications and test methods for passive RFID tags used in aviation applications. SAE has categorized and defined environmental specifications for RFID tag use, for the three environmental categories of "Standard," "Robust" and "Harsh."

Original text is here