Toray announced on January 20 that it has successfully developed ultra-high frequency (UHF) wireless communication technology printed with radio frequency identification (RFID) using semiconductor carbon nanotube composite materials.
Toray said that the results show that the use of low-cost printing technology to produce UHF RFID tags has great potential, can be widely used in retail automated cash registers and logistics and transportation industry efficient inventory management. Toray plans to accelerate the development of this technology to achieve the commercialization of printed radio frequency identification technology.
Toray said that the new radio frequency identification technology can provide more efficient remote communication and batch reading capabilities for retail and logistics operations. However, traditional silicon-based RFID tags have not been widely used due to the need for expensive integrated circuit (IC) chips, complex processes in high temperature and vacuum environments, and additional process requirements for IC chip installation. The low-cost chips and printed semiconductors produced by the new technology do not need to be installed, which can increase the mobility by 20 cm2 / Vs. It is said that the carbon nanotube composite semiconductor material has a mobility of 182 cm2 / Vs.
Generally, thin film transistors (TFTs) are p-type semiconductors (corresponding to positive electrodes) or n-type semiconductors (corresponding to negative electrodes), and carbon nanotubes are generally p-type semiconductors. The proprietary materials developed by Toray this time show the performance of n-type semiconductors. The p-type or n-type thin film transistors produced with the new materials are necessary for the production of energy-saving and low-cost integrated circuits.
At present, Toray uses new materials, proprietary equipment processes, and low-cost printing technology to manufacture a prototype radio frequency identification tag that contains 24-bit memory. According to Toray, the prototype is capable of wireless communication with UHF radio waves within 20cm, which is the first communication in the field using printed UHF radio frequency identification technology. Toray's target product is a 60-bit processor.
The company plans to improve the communication performance of its products, and at the same time increase the communication distance, further develop the manufacturing technology on the membrane.
The research was partially funded by the "Low Carbon Technology Research and Development Project" of the Japanese Ministry of the Environment.