BemroseBooth today announced a joint partnership with Philips Semiconductors, a division of Royal Philips Electronics, to provide a smart, low cost contactless, ticketing solution for public transport systems based on the latest addition to Philips Semiconductors' MIFARE^® family - the MIFARE^® UltraLight.

The introduction of MIFARE^® UltraLight will significantly enhance the production of high volume, low-cost paper tickets by offering manufacturers a range of competitive advantages including advanced design-in support, installed and proven high volume manufacturing processes and in-depth assembly experience. Volume production of MIFARE^® UltraLight-based tickets started at the beginning of 2002.



Andy Blundell, Business Development Director at BemroseBooth explained “We have been developing our RFID strategy for some time and this is the first of a series of co-branded solutions which we will be introducing. The Philips MIFARE^® UltraLight technology coupled with our process expertise in manufacturing tickets at high volume, means that low-cost RFID is now a viable alternative in the Mass Transit market place”.

"Philips Semiconductors' partnership with BemroseBooth furthers our continued commitment to the development, expansion and improvement of transportation ticketing systems worldwide," said Reinhard Kalla, general manager of Business Line Identification at Philips Semiconductors. "By combining our silicon expertise and BemroseBooth leading role in the high volume paper ticket market we will be able to offer MIFARE^® UltraLight-based smart solutions that meet the needs of the transport service provider industry and its passengers."

The MIFARE^® UltraLight operates in full accordance with ISO 14443A, the standard for contactless smart cards and enables the easy integration of smart paper tickets into existing ISO-14443A compliant transportation infrastructures, significantly reducing time to market and related installation and operation costs. MIFARE^® UltraLight-based tickets will be available in credit card size and can be issued by standard credit card ticket vending equipment with a simple contactless reader device upgrade for ticket initialization.

The MIFARE^® UltraLight has a 512-bit EEPROM read/write memory and operates at 13.56 MHz at a distance of up to 10cm. It has true anti-collision properties, operates without the need for a battery and is ideally suited for use in contactless public transport systems and loyalty schemes as well as internet-related applications.

All rights reserved. MIFARE^® is a trademark of Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.

Click here to download the full technical specification


About Royal Philips Electronics
Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands is one of the world's biggest electronics companies and Europe's largest, with sales of EUR 31.8 billion in 2002. It is a global leader in color television sets, lighting, electric shavers, medical diagnostic imaging and patient monitoring, and one-chip TV products. Its 164,000 employees in more than 60 countries are active in the areas of lighting, consumer electronics, domestic appliances, semiconductors, and medical systems. Philips is quoted on the NYSE (symbol: PHG), London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and other stock exchanges.

News from Philips is located at: www.semiconductors.philips.com.


Further details
Andy Blundell
Business Development Director
BemroseBooth
Phone: 01332 294242
Email:ablundell@bemrosebooth.com