Hitachi’s Mu-Chip Gets Boost for International Standardization

Tokyo, Dec. 6 (Jiji Press)–Hitachi Ltd. said Wednesday that a standardization organization for ubiquitous computing technologies has certified the company’s “mu-chip Hibiki” radio frequency identification tag as a “ucode” object and location identification technology.

As ucode-certified technologies are already widely used in many Asian countries, including China, the step may boost the international use of Hitachi’s mu-chip technologies.

The status was granted by the Ubiquitous ID Center in Japan, set up under the T-Engine Forum, a global organization of nearly 500 companies worldwide, including such international giants as Microsoft Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc., as well as Japanese companies such as Hitachi and NEC Corp. .

EPCglobal, a Brussels-based organization supporting the spread of RFID technologies, is also expected to certify Hitachi’s mu-chip Hibiki as an international standardized RFID integrated circuit tag, as early as next year.

Hitachi developed the chip under a project led by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to develop a Japan-made low- priced IC tag that can become an international standard.

Production costs for mu-chip Hibiki are estimated at around 10 yen apiece at present. But the figure could fall to below 5 yen once monthly production exceeds 100 million, according to industry sources.END

(c) 2006 Jiji Press English News Service. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.