KU Builds a Better Chip

From Kansas City Star (Bits and Bytes Column) April 25, 2006
By David Hayes

Researchers at the University of Kansas in Lawrence contend they have built a better RFID chip.

University researchers said the new chip eliminates problems with interference that crops up when radio frequency identification chips are attached to metal or to containers containing liquid.

RFID chips are thin microchips that can be used to track products during manufacturing, storage and shipping. An electronic reader tracks the products by reading data on microchips.

In the past, that data has been difficult or impossible to read when the chips were blocked by metal foil, liquids or metal.

"This solves a nagging problem with RFID tags that has plagued the industry for a long time," said Daniel Deavours, a research assistant professor who developed the chip, called the KU-Tag.

"We had seen a lot of attempts at solutions to the metal/liquid problem from industry, but none had been satisfactory," Deavours said. "The tags we've developed work better on metal than most tags do in free space."

The KU-Tag was developed at KU's Information and Telecommunication Technology Center.

Copyright @ 2006 The University of Kansas