APN-1006

SGTIN – EPC Bit Encoding

Higgs3 | Higgs4
The following application note contains detailed instructions on how to encode the SGTIN
EPC scheme.The Serialized Global Trade Item Number EPC scheme is used to assign a
unique identity to an instance of a trade item, such as a specific instance of a product or
SKU.

The SGTIN consists of the following elements:

•The GS1Company Prefix
•The Item Reference
•The Serial Number

General syntax:
urn:epc:id:sgtin:CompanyPrefix.ItemReference.SerialNumber

Example:
urn:epc:id:sgtin:0614141.112345.400

The following table indicates the limitations imposed on serial numbers

EPC EPC EPC + Includes Serial Number Limitation

Scheme Binary Filter Filter
Coding Bit Value
Scheme Count
sgtin sgtin-96 96 Yes Numeric-only, no leading zeros, decimal value must
be less than 2^38 (i.e., decimal value less than or
equal to 274 , 877 , 906 ,943).
sgtin-198 198 Yes All values permitted by GS1 General
Specifications (up to 20 alphanumeric
characters)
 APN-1006

SGTIN-96 Scheme:

Header Values:

Header Encoding
Value Header Value Length
(binary) (hexadecimal) (bits) Coding Scheme
0011 0000 30 96 SGTIN-96
0011 0110 36 198 SGTIN-198
 APN-1006

Filter values:

Filter Binary
Type Value Value
All Others 0 000
Point of Sale (POS) Trade Item 1 001
Full Case for Transport 2 010
Reserved 3 011
Inner Pack Trade Item Grouping for Handling 4 100
Reserved 5 101
Unit Load 6 110
Unit inside Trade Item or component inside a
product not intended for individual sale 7 111

Both SGTIN coding schemes make reference to the following partition table.

Partition Table 17 (source:

http://www.gs1.org/sites/default/files/docs/tds/TDS_1_8_Standard_20140203.pdf)
 APN-1006

EPC Encoding procedure example:

Step1: Determine the binary header.

Step 2: Determine the partition based on the Company Prefix and Item Ref number of values

Step 3: Convert the Filter, Company Prefix, Item Ref and Serial to binary.

Step 4: Concatenate all parts in the correct order.

Step 5: Convert to Hexadecimal to obtain the EPC.

Filter Item Ref

urn:epc:tag:sgtin-96:3.0614141.812345.6789
Company Prefix Serial

urn:epc:tag:sgtin-96:F.C.I.S

Header (8bits) = 0011 0000

F: Filter (3bits) = 011

Company Prefix (7values) and Item Ref (6values)
Partition = 5

Partition (3bits) = 101

C: Company Prefix (24bits) = 000010010101111011111101
I: Item Ref (20bits) = 11000110010100111001
S: Serial (38bits) = 000D0001101010000101

EPC binary (96bits) =

001100000111010000100101011110111111011100011001010011100100000
000000000000000000001101010000101

EPC hexadecimal = 3074257BF7194E4000001A85

 APN-1006

SGTIN-198 Scheme:

To get detailed information about EPC TDS encoding visit:

http://www.gs1.org/gsmp/kc/epcglobal/tds/

For more information and technical support email us at support@alientechnology.com