Avery Dennison Smartrac has extended its Circus Pro family of NFC products by launching new Circus Pro and Circus Pro Flex NFC inlays that feature the new high-performance Web Authentication em|linq (EM4332) chip.

These newest additions to the Circus Pro portfolio enable secured, end-to-end brand protection solutions requiring an encrypted digital “birth record” for packaged products, a trusted product identity validation service and platform-agnostic consumer engagement capabilities for customers within consumer packaged goods, food and beverage, apparel and beauty markets.

The security offered by the Circus Pro family’s advanced encryption features is now enhanced by the use of the EM Microelectronic em|linq (EM4332) chip. This IC is NFC Type 2 compliant and delivers enhanced radio frequency and cryptographic performance in a cost-effective package.

Its highly optimized cryptographic hardware implementation provides excellent Web Authentication brand protection to consumers’ smartphones using a dynamically generated HMAC-SHA1 code appended to the URL stored in the NDEF container. This results in a high-performance, highly secure tag with Advanced Product Authentication capabilities built in, and offering one-to-one consumer engagement that drives brands closer than ever to consumers.

According to Hal Hikita, head of product management at Avery Dennison Smartrac, “NFC inlays and tags have become extremely popular and essential for enabling impactful consumer experiences anytime, anywhere with ubiquitous smartphones. Our new em|linq-powered additions to our Circus Pro product family dramatically enhance the value of NFC by way of secure product authentication capabilities that protect against cloning and counterfeiting of exclusive dynamic content, thereby unlocking new and robust capabilities for engaging and captivating consumers.”

“EM is excited to support Avery Dennison Smartrac’s solutions with its Swiss-engineered technology” explains Christophe Ratajczak, Smart Systems BU manager at EM Microelectronic. “We trust this partnership will unlock the full market potential behind the NFC-based product authentication.”

Circus Pro inlays are compliant with ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management and ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management. This ensures a reliable product that meets a variety of application needs. The products are available as wet inlays with specific cryptography algorithms and a choice of memory options, work with all NFC-enabled devices, and support real-time tag and message authentication.