Mikron, a 50-year-old Russian microelectronics maker located in Zelenograd just outside Moscow, announced earlier this week that it has developed its own subminiature RFID chip.
The ISO 14443-2.3 standard chip, just 0.2 square millimeters in area, is purported to retain the functionality of a conventional chip while offering a more competitive price.
In an exchange with CNews.ru, Karina Abagyan, a spokesperson for Mikron, said that the Russian firm had invested about $200,000 in the project and aims to supply the new chip for an array of transport and logistics programs, replacing older-generation products.
Reducing the size of a charge pump, an essential component of a contactless chip, is the particular expertise of NIIME, Mikron’s R&D arm and proved essential to achieving the chip’s tiny dimensions. While other microelectronics manufacturers also apply comparable charge pumping technologies to larger-sized products, “such a solution is unrivaled elsewhere in the sector,” Abagyan emphasized, referring to the size of Mikron’s pumps.
She added that the new development is a noticeable step ahead of a prior embedded memory-focused technology licensed to Mikron in 2007 by Switzerland’s ST Microelectronics. “We spent two years mastering this ready-to-use technology, and then our engineers set about developing extra options, not included in the licensed package, paving the way for new classes of microchips,” Abagyan added.
Mikron’s largest shareholder is Sitronics, a group of Russian microelectronics companies owned by the Russian LSE-listed holding company AFK Sistema. Earlier this year, Mikron announced expansion plans, eyeing European, Middle Eastern, African, and American markets. Two years ago, its parent firm, Sitronics, shook hands with China’s ZTE on a huge $2 billion joint venture to make RFID tags and software.
