Printronix gears up for RFID in Asia
SINGAPORE--Printronix has introduced new RFID printers, designed to EPCglobal's Gen 2 encoding specifications, in five countries across the Asia-Pacific region.
According to Wong Ngiam Foong, director of Printronix's research and development, the new SL5000r MP2 printers are an improvement over earlier RFID (radio frequency identification) models introduced in April this year. The new printers support Gen 2 tags, while offering continued support for EPC Class 0, 0+ and 1, and Philips UCode 1.19 protocols.
With upgrade kits, Printronix printers can be tuned to the approved radio frequencies in the respective countries which they are available, said Wong.
The new printers are now shipping in five countries in the Asia-Pacific region: Singapore, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea. The previous RFID models were available in Singapore, Australia and Taiwan only.
According to Wong, the new SL5000r MP2 printer is manufactured in Singapore for worldwide shipment. The island-state is also Printronix's Asia-Pacific research and development and support center for Asian versions of the RFID printer.
On Printronix's rollout plan for the rest of Asia, Wong revealed that next on the list could be Japan which is expected to confirm the UHF (ultra high frequency) spectrum allocation for RFID applications in the first quarter of 2006.
The proposed frequency is the 952-954 MHz band, but there are still no details on specifications such as power voltage, he noted.