Agency Service and Pre-compliance evaluation to apply for the Technical Regulations Conformity Certification in Japan

Are you having trouble with Technical Regulations Conformity Certification?

Wave Technology Inc.(WTI) offers application agency service for Technical Regulations Conformity Certification of your wireless equipment required by Japanese Radio Law^*1, from pre-compliance evaluation of your wireless equipment to applying them to registered certification bodies such as TELEC.

The Radio Law in Japan differs in some aspects from overseas radio standards (FCC, CE standards, etc.). Therefore, in many cases, you need to adjust the performance of the product such as output power to comply with the requirements in Japan. Without doing this, you may not obtain the certification.

We can help you adjust your product to comply with the Japanese Radio Law by conducting a pre-compliance evaluation, and support you to pass the examination by a certification body.

^*1 Applied for BLE (Bluetooth), ZigBee or LPWA (LoRa, Sigfox, Wi-SUN), specified low power radio station, and unique standards, etc.

 

What’s the Technical Regulations Conformity Certification?

“Technical Conformity Mark” is given to products that have been granted a certification called “Technical Regulations Conformity Certification”.

Technical Conformity Mark

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) has the following information on its web page.

In principle, the establishment of a radio station requires a license. However, if the radio station is used for small-scale radio stations such as cell phones (specified radio equipment), and is specified by an ordinance of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, it may be eligible for special measures regarding the procedures for establishing a radio station, such as the omission of an inspection at the time of the licensing procedure, if it has received the standard certification based on the Radio Law in advance and bears the mark specified by an ordinance of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (Technical Conformity Mark). In this case, special measures are available.

In simple terms, this means that a radio station cannot emit radio waves unless it is licensed as a radio station or has been granted the “Technical Conformity Mark”. If you emitted radio waves from an uncertified radio station, you would be in violation of the Radio Law.

 

Flow of pre-compliance evaluation and proxy application for Technical Regulations Conformity Certification

Once WTI receives your order for proxy services, it takes as little as one month to two months for the certificate to be issued.

The following shows the flow of each step.

 

Difference between Technical Regulations Conformity Certification and Attestation of the Construction Design of Specified Radio Equipment

In Japan, there are two levels of certification: “Technical Regulations Conformity Certification” and “Attestation of the Construction Design of Specified Radio Equipment”.
In fact, this two-level certification system is unique to Japan.

Technical Regulations Conformity Certification Testing and certification is conducted for each radio equipment. Attestation of the Construction Design of Specified Radio Equipment Testing is conducted on one sample unit for each type of radio equipment (officially called “construction design”), for attestation of the construction design. This is called the “construction design attestation system”.

 

The certification procedure is basically the same for both, but there is a slight difference in that the Attestation of the Construction Design of Specified Radio Equipment requires submission of documents about the mass production plant.

 

Necessary items to apply for the Attestation of the Construction Design of Specified Radio Equipment

When applying for the Attestation of the Construction Design of Specified Radio Equipment, the applicant must submit a “Construction Design” document that describes the communication method, radio wave identification code, rated output, etc. In order to apply for the service, the following information, documents, and items regarding the product must be provided by the customer.

(1) Product specifications (including radio wave identification code, frequency, and antenna power)

Data sheets of the communication IC or module the product employs, or data sheets of the antenna are also acceptable. If the antenna data sheet is not available, you will need to measure the antenna to obtain necessary data separately.
WTI can also help you with antenna measurements.

(2) System diagram, component layout diagram, and RF chip specifications of the radio equipment

You need to obtain a system diagram of the radio equipment from the manufacturer. This system diagram is a block diagram showing the circuit structure from the clock oscillator to the generation of a transmission radio wave, and to the antenna. A component layout diagram is not necessary if it can be visually confirmed on the actual product. If it is difficult to provide the specifications of the RF chip due to an NDA or other agreement, an internal block diagram of the RF main chip is also acceptable.

(3) Product samples (2 units for examination and for internal confirmation)

(4) Information for operating in test mode

Software dedicated to the test, or operating instructions if operated manually, is required. In the certification examination, according to the communication method, radio wave identification code, frequency, and rated power, etc., radio waves for the product are continuously transmitted and received. For all these combinations, pass or fail judgements are made. It is necessary to provide an environment to allow the examiner to operate the system during the examination.

(5) ISO 9001 certificate of the distributor (your company)

If you have not obtained ISO9001 certification, the product manufacturer’s certificate can also be used.

 

Application for Technical Regulations Conformity Certification

How is the actual application process done?
Since the procedure will differ depending on the type of wireless equipment, let us explain here using an example of a communication board, such as BLE and LPWA, which uses commercially available communication ICs.

The first step is to have your radio equipment examined by a registered certification body such as TELEC.
If you request an examination to a Japanese certification body such as TELEC, it is common you attend the examination at the certification body.
The test items include the following.

★Test item

• Occupied bandwidth
• Frequency tolerance
• Spurious and unwanted emission intensity
• Secondary radiated emissions
• Antenna power
• Spreading bandwidth

For example, the section of “Transmission Spurious” checks for unwanted signals outside the assigned frequency band.

In the examination by a certification body, even if one of all test items, including transmission spurious, does not meet the standards, the product will fail the examination and will not be able to be granted certification.

To avoid such a situation, a pre-compliance evaluation should be conducted before the certification body’s examination to make sure there are no problems.

WTI not only handles an application for Technical Regulations Conformity Certification on behalf of our customers, but also provides services from the pre-compliance evaluation to the on-site evaluation at a certification body.

Especially in the case of products outside Japan, there are many differences between Japanese Radio Law and overseas radio standards (FCC and CE standards). In such a case, we can provide one stop service from adjusting the output power and other specifications to comply with Japanese requirement, to supporting you to pass the examination by a certification body.

We are also happy to respond to various other requests.