DENSO WAVE receives IEEE Milestone for QR Code

2020.10.07

DENSO WAVE Incorporated and DENSO Corporation today announced that the QR Code(1), which DENSO WAVE invented, has received the prestigious IEEE Milestone award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE(2)). IEEE recognized the QR Code for helping to improve the manufacturing and management of companies around the world and for gaining ubiquity worldwide as critical information-sharing tool in a variety of applications, such as electronic payments.

IEEE Milestone is an award that recognizes historic achievements that have contributed to the development of society and industry in the electric and electronic fields. Started in 1983, as of the end of 2019, 207 achievements were recognized as IEEE Milestones worldwide.

Based on the concept of being easy to read and capable of handling large amounts of information, DENSO WAVE (a part of DENSO at that time) developed a QR Code in 1994. QR Codes can handle 200 times more information than bar codes and transmit information at high speed.

After DENSO WAVE created the QR Code, it made it widely accessible to the public and focused on dissemination activities. In the latter half of the 1990s, the QR Code began to be used as an inexpensive and safe technology in manufacturing processes, such as quality checking, product shipments, and inventory management. Since then, the technology's use has expanded to other fields in different industries, such as food and pharmaceuticals. In the first half of the 2000s, its use expanded into everyday life, along with the spread of mobile phones equipped with cameras. In recent years, it is also used for electronic ticket and electronic payment.

Even 25 years after its development, DENSO WAVE continues to develop the functions of QR Code. DENSO WAVE has developed "SQRC" that can store 2 types of data, public and private in a single code and "FrameQR" that achieves a balance between free design and security. The company plans to develop these products in fields such as anti-counterfeit products, and mobile ticket generation.

Both companies will continue to contribute to solving social issues by utilizing the technologies they have developed.

About IEEE and QR Code

1. Resister name of QR Code for IEEE Milestone is “QR Code*1 (Quick Response), 1994”.
2. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Headquartered in the United States, it is the world's largest engineering academy with more than 400,000 members in more than 160 countries.