French lab takes RFID towards 10-Mbit/s

LONDON – The CEA-Leti research center has announced it has demonstrated a contactless interface for RFID cards that operates at 6.8-Mbit/s. Leti has created a prototype of a complete phase modulation system including a reader and a card.

Leti's current work on optimization the signal processing aims to attain speeds greater than 10-Mbit/s. Leti is also holding discussions with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), in partnership with Gemalto.

Contactless smartcards were originally designed for authentication applications such as public transportation tickets, bankcards and access control that require only low data transmission speeds. RFID is currently limited by standard to 848-kbit/s transfer rate. However, applications such as the transfer of biometric data and multimedia file downloads require higher speeds. CEA-Leti (Grenoble, France) and Nokia have developed a radio frequency front-end IC that supports high-data rate short-range communications between a reader, typically a mobile phone, and a memory tag, which supports a data rate of 112-Mbit/s.

The high-speed contactless interface is the result of research that Leti has carried out since 2003 outside and within collaborative research projects.

Related links and articles:

www.leti.fr