M5e-Compact's Small Size, Low Power Requirements and Low Cost Make it Ideal for Mobile, Portable and Handheld RFID Applications

Cambridge, MA, October 2, 2007 – ThingMagic, Inc. (www.thingmagic.com), a leading developer of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology, today introduced the M5e-Compact, the embeddable RFID engine for printers, handheld readers and other portable RFID applications.  ThingMagic’s M5e-Compact was specifically designed for mobile, portable and handheld RFID applications and is ideal for applications that require economy of power and space.  Utilizing ThingMagic’s powerful Mercury OS software and providing a transmit power of +23dBm (200mW), the M5e-Compact provides state of the art performance.  The M5e-Compact is EPCglobal Generation 2 DRM compliant, and is optimized for Generation 2 RFID tags.  The embedded reader also combines multi-region capability into a single module, enabling immediate, locally compliant deployment of any M5e-Compact in North America, South America (countries adopting the FCC frequency plan), Europe (including TG34), South Korea, Japan and China.

Based on the Mercury5e embedded reader module, the ThingMagic M5e-Compact consumes one third of the power and is half the size (56 mm L x 36 mm W x 5 mm H) of the Mercury5e, enabling a variety of RFID applications for asset tracking, warehouse and inventory management, location awareness, and other use-cases that require a powerful, customizable, yet very small RFID reader solution.  The M5e-Compact utilizes the Intel RFID Transceiver R1000 chip, which integrates multiple components into an integrated RFID circuit, and enables digital signal processing and analog data processing on the same chip.

The ThingMagic M5e-Compact is available with a development kit that enables customers to quickly create testing and use environments for Generation 2 RFID tags (samples provided).  This allows PCs to read and write RFID tag data, enables users to monitor the operation of the M5e-Compact control utility, and permits developers to reuse code contained in the utility, to optimize specific applications.

“The embedded Mercury platform provides our customers with a choice of easy to integrate, embedded RFID engines that are optimized to provide high performance in a much smaller size than other solutions,” said Yael Maguire, ThingMagic co-founder and CTO.  “The M5e-Compact will drive further innovation as customers take advantage of its small size and low power requirements to create new and innovate RFID enabled products.  This is yet another example of ThingMagic engineering teams providing innovative and powerful RFID engines that address complex issues and advance the deployment of RFID in a host of new applications.”

ThingMagic M5e-Compact modules and development kits are available now on an OEM basis to manufacturers of label makers, print and apply machines, and other embedded, mobile and handheld RFID devices. 

For more detailed product information and specifications, visit the M5e-Compact Page.