93i Symbology Introduction

Many applications require certain capabilities that are not supported by current linear symbologies. Some of these capabilities include the ability of encoding Unicode (double byte characters), the Extended Channel Interpretation (ECI) protocol, a linked sequence, an indication of the existence of an associated data carrier and error correction. Additionally, there are applications which require more efficient encoding of certain types of data than is currently available in linear symbologies including the encodation of bytes (both for byte data and byte-wise character sets), extended and Full ASCII, and mixed alphanumeric data such as the Code 39 character set. 93i was developed specifically to support these applications as well as other general applications.

93i Symbology Characteristics

The 93i symbology encompasses and extends the Code 93 symbology. The characteristics of 93i are:

a) Encodable Character Set:

1. All 128 ASCII characters, i.e. ASCII character values 0 to 127 inclusive, in accordance with ISO 646
2. All extended ASCII characters, i.e. ASCII character values 128 to 255 inclusive, in accordance with ISO/IEC 8859-1
3. All 65 536 Unicode characters, i.e. character values {0} to {65 535} per Unicode 2.0 and Unicode 2.1
4. Three non-data function characters
5. Four combinations of Start and Stop characters

b) Symbology Type: Continuous, edge to similar edge decodable

c) Elements per symbol character: 6 elements, comprising 3 bars and 3 spaces, each of 1, 2, 3, or 4 modules in width (Stop character: 7 elements comprising 4 bars and 3 spaces)

d) Character self-checking: No

e) Symbol length: Variable

f) Bidirectionally Decodable: Yes

g) Symbol check characters: 2 check characters or 6 Reed Solomon error correction characters

h) Data character density: 5,4 modules per numeric character 9 modules per symbol character for alphanumeric data
13,5 modules per byte 27 modules per Unicode character

i) Non-data overhead: Equivalent of 38 modules including check characters or Equivalent of 91modules including error correction characters

j) ECI protocol support: Yes

k) Special features: Error correction, reader initialization, linked sequencing, and
associated data carrier indication

Examples of 93i Symbols

93i can be structured in two ways, with either two check characters or with error correction.

Figure 1 illustrates the data "AIMI12345{30 908}" encoded in a 93i symbol with check characters.

Figure 1 - 93i symbol with check characters

Figure 2 illustrates the data "93i" encoded in a 93i symbol with error correction.

Figure 2 - 93i symbol with error correction