China considers frequency standard
(China Daily)
Updated: 2005-01-27 08:50

China remains far from deciding its standard for radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, as the country is still evaluating the issue, but could decide the frequency as early as this year.

Zhang Chenghai, executive director of the Article Numbering Centre of China (ANCC), a major force in promoting the popularization and standardization of RFID, said yesterday that China will make some progress in setting the RFID standard, but it may be very difficult to finalize the process this year.

RFID is believed to be an upgraded version of electronic product codes from the current bar code and can build an "Internet of goods," as an RFID device contains much more information than the current bar code and can read the information several metres away, which will have huge impacts on industries including retailing, logistics, semiconductors, and software.

The technology, based on radio frequencies to detect information on products, requires countries to use frequencies in the same range, so products can be detected everywhere in the world. The International Standardization Organization (ISO) suggests a bandwidth between 860 megahertz and 960 megahertz.

The United States, Europe, Japan and South Korean all designated their frequencies, but China has yet to make a final decision, since part of the bandwidth designated by the ISO is used by mobile communications networks and radio channels, meaning that interference is a concern for the Chinese Government.

Zhang said the Automatic Identification Manufacture Association of China (AIMAC) had finished a feasibility study on transplanting the ISO standard into a Chinese standard and drafting a preliminary version of the Chinese standard.

China also conducted some tests in the range of 917-921 megahertz to test the performance of equipment and technology.

He estimated the country will officially allocate some bandwidth to RFID some time this year, thus clearing the biggest obstacle in the development of the new electronic product code system.

Over 50 organizations and companies joined the radio frequency working group under the AIMAC to work on the RFID technology, including major global firms like Philips, Texas Instruments, Microsoft, SAP, and General Electric.

AIMAC Secretary-General Xie Ying said laboratories at the Auto-ID centre in Beijing and Fudan University in Shanghai had designed some sample RFID chips, but they still need more time to improve the designs.

But large-scale application of the technology remains far off.

Limited demand from domestic companies and local industry's low technological level are two major difficulties.

US retail giant Wal-Mart said earlier that it would require its top 100 vendors to use RFID tickers on their products, but it had to delay the process due to technological and cost issues.

Zhou Yi, an analyst with Beijing-based research house Analysys International, believed that no Chinese suppliers are on Wal-Mart's list, so even if the US retail giant does apply the rule, its impact on Chinese industry will be very limited.

At the same time, the average price of an RFID ticker is 25 to 30 US cents, which is almost all the profits of some retailers on some goods.

Zhou estimated that only when total demand for RFID tickers reach 5 billion units, will the price fall to 2 US cents and the retail industry will start to use it on a large scale, but demand is currently only 10 million.

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