CTIA, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA and San Diego, California, USA. May 9, 2012 – Taoglas USA, Inc, a provider of antenna solutions to the M2M market, has launched a new Near Field Communications (NFC) antenna and tag systems for M2M devices. The FXT.01 NFC tag antenna and FXR.01 NFC reader antenna operate at 13.56MHz and provide a well-matched solution (50ohms) for NFC readers. Taoglas is showcasing these antennas at International CTIA Wireless 2012 in New Orleans.
The FXR.01 is an iinovative off-the-shelf NFC antenna, which measures 54×37 x 0.1mm and provides an average NFC tag read distance of 5cm. It is a flexible polymer antenna, with a coaxial cable, whichis said to connect easily to the chipset solution. It is also delivered with 3M adhesive and tape for ease of assembly to a plastic (non-metal) enclosure by a simple ‘peel-and-stick’ method.
“In 2012, it is expected that 1.4 billion cellphones will ship and up to 40% will have an NFC tag. This means that M2M devices can now become NFC readers to cellphones by simply drawing on the NFC technology inside the M2M devices,” said Dermot O’Shea (pictured). Taoglas’s joint managing director told M2M Now, “For this the Taoglas NFC antenna is an ideal solution for M2M device makers to take advantage of this opportunity and make their devices mobile payment terminals. Taoglas provides access to both their reader and tag technologies in an off-the-shelf ‘peel-and-stick’ solution.”
The FXR.01 NFC antenna has an integrated matching circuit designed to provide effective antenna matching. The Q of the antenna and matching circuit combination have been selected to provide a solution where bandwidth and read performance have been optimised for best tag interrogation performance.
Custom NFC antenna design is also offered by Taoglas where antenna area is maximised for specific applications in order to enhance interrogation distance. NFC tags are normally attached to the battery of mobile devices, and Taoglas’ NFC tag can also be customised with a ferrite layer to provide isolation from a battery or any other metal or groundplane in a device.
Taoglas has also released a passive NFC tag antenna, the FXT.01. It measures 45x34x0.1mm. This is also a ‘peel-and-stick’ flexible polymer tag solution. The tag design requires no additional matching components. Similar to the FXR.01 antenna, the FXT.01 tag’s dimensions provide interrogation capability to 5 cm distance. This standard antenna tag is also manufactured in a flexible polymer material for ease of use and installation.
Taoglas provides a comprehensive range of external, embedded and base station antenna solutions for M2M applications such as telematics / automotive, smart grid, metering/telemetry, home automation, remote monitoring and telemedical applications. The company’s device RF optimisation OTA test chambers and labs in the US and Ireland enable M2M manufacturers, not only to design and test antenna solutions for M2M devices all with one company, but to avail of pre-certification OTA (efficiency/radiation patterns/TRP/TIS) testing for PTCRB and USA network requirements.
