Smart Label Features and Printing

With the higher and more complete information needs of people on the production, storage and transportation, quality assurance, anti-counterfeit, and management of traditional products, the traditional bar code labels are clearly incapable. With the advancement of technology and application in the field of label production, a brand-new, multi-functional, smart label with good anti-counterfeit effect has been widely used. It will bring new vitality and vitality to the label printing industry.

Traditional bar code labels are widely used in various industries due to their convenient and fast features and certain anti-counterfeiting functions. However, with the higher and more complete information needs of people in many aspects such as the production, storage and transportation, quality assurance, anti-counterfeit, and management, the traditional bar code label is obviously incapable. With the advancement of technology and application in the field of label production, a brand-new, multi-functional, smart label with good anti-counterfeit effect has been widely used. It will bring new vitality and vitality to the label printing industry.

First, the characteristics and application of smart tags

SmartLabel is also known as a radio frequency identification tag. It is a high-tech product in the label field and now plays an important role in product packaging. It will gradually replace traditional product labels and bar codes. Smart Label is a rookie in the field of labels. It has the function of surpassing the traditional labels and is the crystallization of high technology such as electronics and computers printed on the labels. Smart tags include RFID tags, concealed or exposed trademark protection indicators, or sensors that indicate the status of the product. The electronic tag is mainly composed of a chip and an antenna. The chip is mainly used for receiving and transmitting data, and is read through a radio frequency signal sent by a reader. The reader is connected with an antenna and a computer network to form an electronic module, and the reader sends from it. The special signal of the antenna is given to the electronic tag in a specific area, and the feedback information is processed and transmitted to the computer network so that the management personnel can obtain the special information of the product. Smart labels can help manufacturers and consumers understand the status of commodity inventory, circulation, and shelf life in real time, and play a significant role in monitoring the status and position of their products in the supply chain. For example, the packaging of many foods and medicines must be stored and transported at a specific temperature and in a low-pollution environment. General labels cannot understand and monitor the temperature and shelf life of products stored, and smart labels can be monitored during product storage and transportation. The temperature of perishable products that are sensitive to temperature requirements, it uses special chips, antennas, sensors, etc. to measure the temperature during storage and transportation, alerting manufacturers to prevent temperature changes affecting the product. Also, if the warehouse manager can use smart tags to understand the type and quantity of products on the shelves, check the product inventory data to determine the product sales. In addition, smart labels improve the anti-counterfeiting effect of traditional labels, and its anti-counterfeiting capabilities have greatly exceeded traditional bar code labels, especially in pharmaceutical packaging.

The related products of smart tags have a wide application space in the areas of commodity production, storage and transportation, inventory management for sales, etc. In Japan, Hitachi, Fujitsu, and Toppan Printing Co., Ltd. have mass-produced and marketed smart tags. In the United States and Europe, major retailers, including Wal-Mart, are striving to promote the use of smart labels. In June 2004, Wal-Mart requested that RFID technology be used to manage goods in 2005, requiring its main 100 suppliers in 2005. Smart RFID tags must be used before, and within a year or two, most vendors must use standard smart tags. According to reports, the production of such smart labels is currently growing rapidly. In Europe, the market reached more than US$5 billion in 2005 and grew at a rate of about 40% annually. It is estimated that in 2008, the use of RFID tags in the world will reach more than 20 billion, and the retail industry will be universally applied. RFID smart tags.

Second, smart label printing technology

There is a big difference between the production of smart labels and the printing of traditional labels. At present, China's traditional label printing technology has a very high level. There is no lack of experienced companies in the trademark printing industry, producing many beautifully designed and high-quality products. , But for the smart tag, some people think that it has nothing special, as long as it is covered with a plain label on a beautiful coat, which is not difficult for high-quality label printing companies, but simply adding beautiful The smart label of the outerwear is worrying about its high added value. Then, compared with the traditional label printing, what are the characteristics of smart label printing? First of all, from the definition of a smart label, smart is a radio frequency circuit composed of a chip, an antenna, etc.; and the label is a label printing process to make a radio frequency circuit. With a commercial coat. From a printing point of view, the emergence of smart labels will bring higher gold content to traditional label printing. The chip layer of smart labels can be packaged and printed with materials such as paper, PE, PET, and even textiles to make self-adhesive stickers, paper cards, hanging labels, or other types of labels. Since the chip is the key to the smart label, it is determined by its special structure, and cannot withstand the pressure of the printing press. Therefore, in addition to ink jet printing, it is generally used to print the surface layer first, and then composite with the chip layer, die-cutting process.

(1) Printing method. Screen printing is the first choice for printing. This is mainly because screen printing can not be achieved with other printing methods in terms of the printed quality of integrated circuit boards and membrane switches. In smart label printing, conductive ink is used, and the preferred screen for printing conductive ink is a nickel foil perforated wire mesh, which is not made of wire mesh woven from general metal or nylon, but is instead drilled from nickel foil. Foiled nets are hexagonal in shape, and can also be formed into a round hole by electrolytic forming. The entire surface of the mesh is even and thin, which can greatly improve the stability and precision of imprinting. It is effective for printing high-tech products such as conductive inks, wafers, and integrated circuits. It can resolve the circuit line interval of 0.1 mm, and the positioning accuracy can be improved. 0.01mm.

(2) The application of conductive ink. Conductive inks are special inks that can incorporate conductive carriers in UV inks, flexographic water-based inks, or special offset inks to make inks conductive. Conductive inks are mainly composed of conductive fillers (including metal powders, metal oxides, non-metals, and other composite powders), linkers (mainly synthetic resins, photosensitive resins, low-melting-point organic glasses, etc.), additives (mainly dispersants, and adjustments). Agents, thickeners, plasticizers, lubricants, inhibitors, etc.), solvents (mainly aromatics, alcohols, ketones, esters, alcohol ethers, etc.), conductive inks are a type of functional ink, mainly in printing. There are carbon paste, silver paste and other conductive inks. Carbon paste ink is a liquid thermosetting ink. It has the function of protecting copper foil and conducting current after film curing. It has good conductivity and low resistance. It is not easy to oxidize, stable performance, acid, alkali and chemical solvents. Erosion; With strong wear resistance, anti-wear, good thermal shock resistance and other characteristics. Silver paste ink is a liquid ink composed of ultra-fine silver powder and thermoplastic resin. It can be used on PET, PT, PVC sheet, and has strong adhesion and hiding power. Low temperature cure, controlled conductivity and very low resistance. In addition, conductive nanometer carbon ink is added to the conductive ink made of ink, and conductive ink can also be made of metal powder (such as silver powder) into nanometer silver powder. This conductive ink is not only a printed film. Thin and uniform smooth, excellent performance, but also can save a lot of material. In smart label printing, conductive inks are mainly used to print RFID antennas, replacing traditional metal foils produced by foiling or etching. It has two main advantages: First, the conventional metal foil made by foil-pressing or etching has a complicated process and a long time for the production of a finished product, and the application of a conductive ink to print the antenna is a high-speed printing method. High speed is the preferred quick and inexpensive method for printing antennas and circuits. Today, conductive inks have begun to replace etched antennas at various frequency bands, such as ultra-high frequency bands (860 to 950 MHz) and microwave frequency bands (2450 MHz). Antennas printed with conductive ink can be compared to traditionally etched copper antennas. In addition, conductive inks It is also used to print sensors and wires in smart labels; secondly, metal foils produced by conventional foiling or etching methods consume wasted metal materials at a high cost, and the cost of raw materials for conductive inks is lower than that of traditional metal antennas. This is of great significance in reducing the production costs of smart labels.

(3) unique process requirements. In the manufacture of smart labels, there are unique requirements for the production process, and high yield, thick paper printing, and composite processing should be the main focus.

In terms of high yield, since the value of the smart label itself is many times higher than that of an ordinary printed label, it brings high profits to the enterprise, and high yield of printed matter is particularly important. In particular, many products require multi-color UV ink printing, glazing, and gluing. Most of the large-volume labels are also processed by roll-to-roll printing or no-interface printing (through-pass), due to a large number of processing operations. Big difficulty in screening the finished product.

For thick paper printing, in the paperboard processing, it must be noted that the equipment must have good printability for 350-gram-thick paperboard, and the tension of the paper tape should be kept stable in the paper-card printing to ensure that the accumulated printing overlay error is minimized. Therefore, if each frame is overprinted, but the space between the frames has a large error, it will cause troubles for the compounding and die-cutting process after the smart label is printed.

As for composite machining, it is a key process in the processing of smart labels. In the composite processing, not only does the size between each label not change due to tension, but also for film materials, it takes into account the tensile deformation caused by the label spacing Increase the degree and make appropriate adjustments.