Customised reader

has announced the immediate availability of RangeMaster, said to be industry’s first solution that allows system vendors to design and maintain a single “universal” reader than can be customised to read different RFID tag types, with different modulation schemes and frequencies.

RangeMaster fully supports EPC Global Gen 1 and Gen 2 (class 0, 1, 2) and ISO18000-6 standards and is the first in a family of RFID reader solutions that Anadigm is developing for RFID markets. RFID technology is said to have the potential to revolutionise markets as diverse as retail sales - by eliminating the check-out line and controlling inventory - to ensuring that luggage gets put on the right airplane.

RangeMaster is a two-chip solution that uses a customised Field Programmable Analogue Array (FPAA) in conjunction with an RFID State Machine, enabling system designers to develop a universal RFID tag reader that can support multiple protocols and frequencies for Universal Fixed Readers, Portable/Handheld Readers, Combination Bar Code and RFID Reader/Scanners.

By allowing standardisation around a single printed circuit board to support multiple end products and markets, RangeMaster is said to simplify and improve product development. This allows customers building RFID tag readers to reduce their time to market, and offer a lower total cost of ownership.

Since this solution is based on programmable technology, it allows for innovative system design. The gain in the analogue front-end of the RFID reader can be adjusted to optimise the tag read range. The reader can be calibrated at the customer site to eliminate background interferences, such as fluorescent lighting. RangeMaster allows EPC2 frequency pair decoding or selectable single frequency decoding. The chipset also provides anti-saturation control and can extract all data frequencies from DC to 800 kHz, and selected frequencies up to 3 MHz.

“Shipments of RFID readers for product identification and inventory management technology are projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of greater than 50% over the next four years,” said Bill McLean, CEO of Anadigm. “By bringing programmable analogue technology to this market, Anadigm is providing a flexible solution that provides higher levels of integration at a substantially reduced cost.”

Prices for the RangeMaster solution starts at US$10.25 in 10,000-piece quantities, with samples available now.