Electronics arms of Samsung, LG, LS Groups to introduce RFID/USN The bright and exciting future for RFID/USN has been highlighted by the Korean government's plans to build a RFID/USN cluster on a land site of 24,634 pyeong (one pyeong equals 3.3 square meters) in Songdo New City in Incheon Free Economic Zone at a total cost of 399.4 billion won by 2010, according to the vice president of the Korea Association of RFID/USN, (KARUS), Choi Sung-kyu. Noting that RFID/USN is a core factor for realizing the ubiquitous society of the future and bolstering national competitiveness, Choi said that the government has paid keen attention to RFID/USN, while introducing the technology to munitions, procurement, shipping and aircraft sectors. Interviewed by this magazine, the KARUS vice president said, "In the private sector, electronics companies affiliated with Samsung, LG, LS groups, SI firms, and a number of small and medium-sized companies are actively pushing for the introduction of RFID/USN." Many international market survey institutions predict that the scale of the RFID/USN industry will expand at a rapid pace in the future. Based on such bright prospect, a number of global-level enterprises, including HP, Sun, IBM and Oracle, are actively participating in the RFID/USN industry. "The prospects for the RFID/USN industry in Korea are also very bright as the nation can make the best use of its top-level IT infrastructure, advanced mobile communication technology and talented IT manpower," he said. "Taking the Seoul government's intensive industry fostering policy focusing on R&D investment into consideration, the domestic RFID/USN industry is expected to progress at a rapid pace," said Choi. In particular, the possibility is high that Korea will be a powerhouse of mobile RFID/USN and lead the world in technology development of application service and standardization, he said. Considering these factors n, he continued to say, it is desirable for Korea to create the RFID/USN Asian market in close cooperation with Japan, China and India. Asked about the significance and outcome of the international conference, RFID/USN Korea 2005 held in Seoul on Oct. 12-14, Choi said that the event was very successful in terms of both size and contents. A total of 823 RFID/USN experts, government officials, scholars, and company executives from nine countries, including the United States, China, Japan, Singapore, India, Taiwan, Switzerland and Austria, participated in the RFID/USN Korea 2005. In particular, some 60 world-famous RFID/USN experts, including John Williams, director of MIT, Ian Robertson, vice president of HP, Christian C. Clauss, IBM Worldwide Auto- ID leader, and Sanjay Sarma, founder of Auto ID Center, attended the meeting. During the three-day international exhibition, 55 companies set up 148 booths and introduced their RFID-related products, including reader, tag, middleware, and 900Mhz mobile RFID-related chip. They also showed RFID technologies applied to entrance and exit control, medicine, manufacture process, product management and harbor logistics. The number of visitors from 23 countries to the RFID/USN Korea 2005 stood at 28,572. Moreover, Korea's nine small and medium-sized companies held consultation meetings with 33 foreign companies on RFID tag, antenna, reader solution, mobile RFID security system, and other RFID/USN technologies. Through active consultation meetings, Korean firms made a total of 2.07 billion won worth of export contracts with foreign buyers on the spot. The total contracts broke down into 1.3 billion won for RFID tag, 700 million won for reader, and 70 million won for board, module & other RFID items. Boosted by the successful hosting of the RFID/USN Korea 2005, Korea plans to develop the international conference into RFID/USN Asia in 2007 in close cooperation with other Asian countries, including Japan and China, Choi said. At the same time, Korea is actively pushing ahead with the hosting of the RFID/USN APEC international conference in the near future, he added.