Theft prevention system based on networked active Tags (sensor networks)

With more than 350 employees at seven locations, the Fraunhofer Institute of Reliability and Microintegration, IZM, is one of the leading institutes for microelectronics and microsystem packaging worldwide.

Main competencies are material science and characterization, design and simulation, high density interconnect and wafer level packaging, chip and board interconnection technologies, 3D-packaging and vertical chip integra-tion, mechatronics, micromechanical systems, reliability and failure analysis, environmental engineering, polymer materials and composites, polytronic and flexible systems.

Emphasis is the transfer of research results into practical applications offering customized packaging solutions. In particular, Fraunhofer IZM know-how contributes to new developments in information and communication (e.g. mobile phones) and automotive technologies (e.g. airbag sensors).

Alexander Pflaum studied electrical engineering at the university of Erlangen-Nürnberg. Before he started his research activities at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits in 1993 he worked for Siemens Transportation Systems in Erlangen. In 1994 he joined the Application Centre for Transport Logistics and Telecommunication Technologies, a branch office of the Institute for Integrated circuits in Nuremberg, and headed the project group for IT solutions in logistics. After finishing his doctoral thesis on RFID & SCM in 2001 he headed the Department for Information Technologies and Supply Chain Management inside the Centre for Applied Research on Technologies of the Logistics Service Industries (ATL) into which the application centre has been transfered in 2001. Today he is responsible for all activities that focus on development and implementation of innovative information and communication technologies in logistical operations inside ATL. In 2006 he set up the Engineering Centre for Smart Objects in Logistics which is also a part of the Institute of Integrated Circuits. Here he and his fellow researchers focus on RFID, sensor networks and localisation solutions from a systems point of view.