ThingMagic Mercury4 RFID reader

(View Larger ThingMagic Mercury4 RFID reader Image)

Description: ThingMagic is shipping a Linux-powered RFID reader-based on a software-defined radio (SDR). The company says the Mercury4 can read any RFID tag format, including those not yet invented, and can be adapted to meet regional regulations. Additionally, it can read 266 million tag-instructions per second.

The Device uses a software-defined radio (SDR) to read RFID tags. The SDR is based on a Texas Instruments DSP chip running a proprietary RFID stack called 'MercuryOS'. According to ThingMagic, the Mercury4 reads all variants of EPC Class 1 and 0, including the new "rewriteable" Class 0 tag, as well as ISO 18000-6B and UCODE EPC 1.19. The unit's digital signal-processing software can be updated as needed to support additional RFID radio protocols as they emerge, such as EPC Generation 2 and ISO 18000-6A, the company says.

SDR also enables Mercury4 to support multiple frequencies, and regional regulatory variations, ThingMagic said. The first release of Mercury4 supports North American UHF regulations, but subsequent versions will support HF, European UHF, and Japanese UHF options.

ARM Core: ARM Xscale Architecture based processor

Silicone Supplier: Texas Instruments and Intel Xscale processors

Features:

• The Mercury4 is based on a 266MHz Intel IXP4xx,
• An NPU (network processor unit) with integrated acceleration of network functions.
• It also includes a TI TI55xx DSP clocked at 300MHz.
• The system boots from 16MB of Flash, and has 64MB of DRAM.
• Input/output interfaces include RS-232 serial and RS-485 multi-drop serial interfaces,
• 10/100 Ethernet,
• USB device interface, 
• 802.11b/g miniPCI card.

Source: Linux Devices