Interview with Benedikt Weigand on the background of this success story and CISC.

CISC Semiconductor – a technology enabler for wired and wireless communication and founding member of SAC – has helped SKIDATA in the development and optimization of their NFC solutions, especially with their NFC Xplorer. Connect with CISC

Hi Benedikt, what is your current role at CISC?

I am responsible for Sales in Europe and Asia for the RFID sector. I really enjoy being close to the customers and building the bridge between our engineers, the market and its companies. Listening to their current and future needs and providing solutions to the companies is very rewarding – especially when I see products later on the market which were enabled with the help of CISC.

Your promising slogan is “Adding Trust in a Connected World” – So what is it that CISC does?

To put it brief, CISC Semiconductor is a technology enabler for wired and wireless communication. If you pay with your phone or contactless bank card, the payment terminal was likely developed with the help of CISC technology. If you go skiing and check through the access gate of a ski lift, CISC devices have helped to ensure smooth functionality. If you drive a German car, CISC has helped to enable the identification of material flows in the production of your car.

”Adding trust in a connected world“ means for CISC Semiconductor, providing hardware and software products that enhance quality, security, privacy, performance, interoperability, and conformance in communication systems for markets like Automotive, Semiconductor, Identification and Wireless Communication. Our products, combined with extensive collaborative R&D work, are used by our international customers in the areas of system development and integration, modeling, testing, verification, and virtual prototyping.

2020 was a special year for all of us – how did you at CISC experience the time?

2020 has been a dynamic and challenging year for nearly everyone, including CISC. Despite the Covid-19 lockdowns and unsure forecasts, we tackled the situation interestingly well. Working digitally was part of our company culture even before the Covid-19 pandemic started, also due to our multiple locations and partners in different time zones. With the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, we also realized early that further optimizing and extending our digital communication, marketing and sales are key in those times. To cope with the stop of face-to-face customer meetings, trade shows, and alike, we invested time in launching a new website, further optimizing our social media channels, video tutorials, and webinars. The acceptance of online demos has increased strongly compared to past times where it was often better to show up in person.

So to your project with SKIDATA, how did your partnership evolve?

SKIDATA is a global leader in the field of access solutions. The underlying technology is RFID, in particular NFC. Developing NFC solutions is not straightforward without professional equipment. To meet the high market demands, it was clear for SKIDATA to work with the leader in NFC testing and so they approached us. But our partnership started long ago, as SKIDATA was among the first customers of our RFID test solutions that we started to offer around 15 years ago. We are continuously adding new features to our products, such as our visionary NFC Xplorer, to meet the customer requirements in a dynamic market.

So we are now curious about the NFC Xplorer! How has it helped SKIDATA?

The NFC Xplorer is a compact, high-quality test system for NFC and HF RFID device measurements. It delivers high precision measurement results for NFC tag and reader development both for performance and conformance testing. Overall, it is key in enabling the development of high-quality NFC systems. The NFC Xplorer helps for example that NFC cards perform well with NFC readers and phones. As label vendors in general also SKIDATA benefits from NFC Xplorer to ensure best in class label design with consistent product quality for best customer satisfaction: For consumers this means for example convenient and satisfying access for parking and skiing.

So it’s fair to say the future outlook and your prospects seem exciting!

Indeed! Many companies have asked CISC to help them beyond the development of tags and readers, which covers the Quality Control in production lines of tags and readers. With the NFC Xplorer Inline and RAIN Xplorer Inline, CISC is extending its portfolio for high-speed testing in the production lines without limiting the speed of high-volume production machines. CISC also acts as a one-stop-solution provider to cover the increased demand in hardware design services e.g. NFC-based wireless charging modules.

Thank you for your time and we are looking forward to what great products you will bring us in the future!

Read more on the project:

-> The detailed case study for NFC and HF testing for SKIDATA can be found here

CISC SAC Profile

CISC website: www.cisc.at

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/ciscsemiconductor

Interview: Hartwin Kostron | Silicon Alps