Technical specifications for Composite Component (CC) are available at: http://www.aimglobal.org/aimstore/
There are three members of the Composite Component family: Composite Component A, B and C. They are chiefly distinguished by their capacity to encode data. They are not designed as "stand alone" symbols, but must be combined with GS1 linear symbols that encode GS1 System identification numbers.
Composite Component is a two dimensional barcode: it is not a true matrixed code, but a stacked linear barcode. CC is bi-directionally decodable therefore can be read with laser scanners and doesn't require the use of imaging scanner technology as true matrixed codes do. They have a binary-based encoding scheme optimized for GS1 Application Identifier Element Strings. Special compaction methods have been designed to decrease the symbol size for commonly used Element Strings such as lot number and expiration date.
All Composite symbols, except EAN/UPC composites, encode a linkage flag in both the linear component and the 2-Dimensional Composite Component to tell the scanner to continue scanning for the other component. Scanners that read EAN/UPC Composite Symbols should be set up to look for both the linear and 2D components.
CC-A can encode up to 56 digits of alphanumeric data. CC-A can be combined with any of the GS1 System symbols except for ITF-14. This code is based on MicroPDF417.
CC-B can encode up to 338 digits of alphanumeric data. CC-B can be combined with any of the GS1 System symbols except for ITF-14. This code is based on MicroPDF417. It is only used if the data string is too long to be encoded in CC-A.
CC-C must be combined only with GS1-128. CC-C can encode up to 2361 digits of alphanumeric data. This code is based on PDF417 and has multiple widths to match the GS1-128 width and can have from 3 to 90 rows.