RFID Technology

As the first Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) label manufacturer in France, and a leader in the field, Paragon ID have a wealth of experience. We employ RFID in a variety of our products, for the benefit of our clients, as it provides customer satisfaction, brand protection, traceability and fraud prevention - to name just a few of its many benefits.

What is RFID?

A technology that is used to identify objects or people, RFID is based on the use of radio electric waves to read the data contained within an RFID transponder, commonly known as a label or tag. These tags are composed of transmitters commonly referred to as readers, or RFID Encoders.

RFID labels, tags and markers are composed of a microchip and a radio antenna. The chip has all the pertinent information for the different applications of identification, and the antenna uses the radio frequencies for powering the chip and transmitting the data.

Passive RFID

RFID labels are, on the whole, passive, meaning they don’t require an additional energy source to the one sent by the reader, and captured by the radio antenna. Readers are capable of emitting radio frequencies continuously, thereby activating every marker in range. The chip/antenna assembly, commonly called an inlay, is encapsulated in a label, tag or card to protect it.  

The RFID application to be used dictates the frequency required, as well as the reading distances necessary. Identification applications, when using radio frequencies vary, depending on the reading/writing and/or rewriting capabilities of the microchip.

Tag identifier

Each microchip contains a unique and unfalsifiable code – called the tag identifier - registered by the manufacturer during the production of the microchip. The majority of microchips have a rewritable blank memory generally called user memory. This part of the microchip allows the user/manufacturer to store data and also to transmit that data to other equipment. Depending on the access rights of the user, some microchips authorise access to this memory zone.

Once written, this memory can be rewritten or locked. For ultra high frequency technology, a specific memory zone is used to encode the data linked to standard barcodes used in retail and logistics. It is called the Electronic Product Code (EPC) memory. It allows for the RFID to become “transparent” to ERP systems as this area of memory is read like a barcode.