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Vietnam aims to commercialize homemade RFID applications
HO CHI MINH CITY -- Japan's Shoei Printing last week signed a contract to develop and commercialize applications of radio-frequency identification technologies based on concepts from Vietnam's Integrated Circuit Design Research and Education Center.
RFID chips, which need little power to encode and store pieces of information, are already replacing bar codes and other dated technologies.
Shoei will develop applications for two types of Vietnam-developed RFID technologies. Each uses a different radio frequency and is the result of studies conducted by the research and education center during the past four years. Chips based on HF RFID technology, which uses high-frequency electromagnetic waves, will be embedded into payment cards and access-control cards. Meanwhile, UHF RFID chips, which use ultra-high frequencies, are designed for IC tags meant to help keep track of inventories in a warehouse or packages in transit, according to the center.
"We expect to provide smartcards and operating systems in Vietnam, such as tickets for subway lines that are now under construction in Ho Chi Minh City and are expected to start rolling in the next couple of years," said Makoto Nakagawa, general manager of Shoei Printing. Nakagawa is also chief of the company's representative office in Vietnam.
The research and education center will outsource part of chip production to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.; the chips will then be embedded in cards in Japan by Shoei. The center hopes to bring all processing stages to Vietnam by 2017, when an IC manufacturing plant in Ho Chi Minh City is to open.
According to Nakagawa, RFID-integrated products are already available in Japan and Singapore. Shoei and the Vietnamese center aim to commercialize a "brand new" and original application based on Vietnamese technology, he said.
Dao Ngoc Chien, deputy chief of the High Technology Department under Vietnam's Ministry of Science and Technology, has called the deal a breakthrough for the country's young technology industry. The project is part of a $6.6 million program to develop and make RFID chips in Vietnam.
Vietnamese companies and consumers use some 20 billion RFID chips a year. The country's RFID chip market is estimated at $45 million; indigenous vendors account for less than 5% of it.
Vietnamese technology: Japan's Shoei Printing gets RFID contract- Nikkei Asian Review