Download - Korea IT Times

RFID/USN
RFID/USN Takes Smart Life
to New Heights
When Korea IT Times visited
the Korea RFID/USN Center
(www.ruc.or.kr) in 2008, President
of the Center, Shin Sang-chul
(ssc@ruc.or.kr), shared his ambition
to produce as many RFID
chips as there are grains of sand on
the coast of Incheon. As of today,
the RFID export rate is 130 billion
won per year. Until last year, cost
was a major hindering factor for allowing
RFID from fully flourishing,
but this has been taken care of.
The current price of the RFID chip
is 6-7 cents. Now progress is being
made regarding the matter of privacy
protection and information.
"Within 2-3 years, the price is expected
to drop further to 5 cents.
The RFID business is already expanding
from B2B to B2C. Mobile
RFID chips and applications are blossoming and readers are
portable. The Samsung Galaxy S smartphone is already designed
to place the RFID reader at the back of the phone. With an antennae,
the phone can receive 13.56 MHz WiFi service on demand.
The next version of iPhone 4G will change the back cover from
an iron plate to plastic, so that it can be used with the RFID tag
reader. It is evident that RFID/USN will be the core technology
of the Smart Era which buckles safety, efficiency, health, and happiness
of its people," said Shin Sang-chul, President of the RFID
USN Center (RUC).
The rapid growth of RFID/USN technology is all credited to
RUC. RUC has been in every step of RFID manufacturing for
companies at any size. RUC's undying support has been covering
various areas from manufacturing pilots to issuing certification of
authentication at a low cost. About 3,000 companies come to
RUC from home and abroad to be tested for certification of authentication.
Japanese companies often come to RUC to gain
global authentication. RUC has also been renting out the RFID
manufacturing and testing equipments to SMEs at very affordable
costs. All these brought a flood of RFID convergence to
Korean industries and market. Shin Sang-chul, the President of
the RFID/USN Center, states the trend of RFID/USN's capacity
48 KOREA IT TIMES | December 2010
Shin Sang-chul, the President of the RFID/USN Center is passionately explaining Micro Processing
and explains the Center's distinct role in future development.
Smart Life and Smart Society via Mobile RFID
Services
Mobile RFID signifies mobile phones with a built-in RFID
reader chip which works as a RFID reader. Due to this mobile
RFID, companies can adopt a RFID system at a low cost. SK
Telecom and KT announced that they would unveil RFID smartphones
in the second half of this year. This means that full-blown
RFID services will be provided through partnerships with discount
stores, convenience stores, vending machines, movie theaters
and theme parks. Once smartphone users put their RFIDequipped
smartphones against tags attached to menus, they can
choose an item, pay and receive it all at the same time. As such,
mobile RFID will make our life smarter and vibrant. Through the
application of the mobile RFID system, smart life and smart society
can be realized. A case in point is Incheon International
Airport's RFID logistics system (the first in the world): mobile
RFID is utilized to manage Incheon International Airport's system
for logistics and distribution information. By applying mobile
RFID technology to all kinds of cargoes bound for other nations,
Incheon International Airport has succeeded in appreciably cutting
logistics costs and real-time-management. Hanmi