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— August 9, 2006

RFID

TI Introduces Gen 2 Chips
Texas Instruments will put its Gen 2 chips into production next month, making them widely available. It already has begun sending samples of the chips to some customers, according to Bill Allen, TI's director of strategic alliances. "We're excited that we can finally announce availability of our Gen 2 silicon," says Allen.
The company has been selling UHF EPC Gen 2 inlays (chips mounted on antennas) since late last year, but has been sourcing chips for those inlays from Seattle-based semiconductor maker Impinj. Customers who currently have TI's Gen 2 inlays with Impinj chips will continue to receive full product support and service, the company says, but starting next month it will stop selling Gen 2 inlays to end users, and will sell only Gen 2 chips to tag makers and label converters.
Allen says that TI has engineered its Gen 2 chips to be highly sensitive to RF interrogation, which makes the chip 20 percent more energy-efficient than other Gen 2 tags, and allows it to transmit its data across a larger distance. As an alternative, he says, the increased sensitivity could be used to lower the size of the tag's antenna, in which case some of the efficiency gain could be lost but the tag size could be reduced, allowing for greater integration options into packaging or tag form factors.
TI will sell its Gen 2 chips in three different form factors. The most expensive option will be chip mounted onto a conductive strap, which can then be attached to an antenna to make a complete inlay. The two other options will be a standard uncut wafer of chips and a wafer that has been scored and "bumped," which makes the individual chips easy to remove from the wafer and add to antennas to create inlays.
Allen believes by offering chip mounted on straps, TI will enable new types of companies, such as packaging suppliers, to begin integrating tags into their products. Earlier this year, TI and packaging supplier Smurfit-Stone demonstrated a cardboard case with an integrated UHF Gen 2 inlay made with a chip mounted on a strap.
http://www.rfidjournal.com

How Many Tags?
Analysts and industry watchers have long considered the number of passive RFID tags sold to be a key metric of the overall market size. One needn't look far to answer this question. Because Impinj has been the sole supplier of Gen2 RFID chips up until this week when Texas Instruments entered the market, the number of such chips sold by Impinj essentially equals the number of Gen2 tags on the market.
According to Drew Nathanson, director of the AIDC/RFID technologies practice at Venture Development Corporation, Impinj has shipped between 125 million and 175 million since September 2005. Subtracting the 50 million chips that Impinj publicly stated it had shipped before the end of last year, calendar 2006 shipments probably fall in the 75 to 125 million range.
Reik Read, analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co., expects that to ramp over the remainder of the year, with the final 2006 tally reaching 350 to 400 million chips. While Impinj does not publicly report exact shipment numbers, CEO Bill Colleran told RFID Update the company's own estimates are higher, around 400 to 500 units for the year. But there is a lag between when a chip is shipped and when the resulting tag is produced and ready for deployment. Thus, the number of shipped chips does not equal the number of actual tags in a given year. Assuming the 400 to 500 million shipped chips projected by Impinj, the likely number of Gen2 tags for 2006 will be in the 250 to 300 million range. While 300 million may seem like a big number, it suggests quite a small dollar amount for a technology market. Assuming a Gen2 tag price of $0.15, the entire tag market for 2006 would come to only $45 million.
Baird is bullish for the future of RFID, however. "I see a good five to ten years worth of very strong growth for the overall industry," Read said.
http://www.rfidupdate.com

IBM Offers Free RFID Resources
IBM has released three new resources targeted at developers and students that the company hopes will accelerate the adoption of RFID technology. The resources available free of charge on IBM's alphaworks (www.alphaworks.ibm) site, which it maintains to foster the understanding and development of emerging technologies.
The company cites the widely-reported shortage of qualified RFID workers as a key hurdle to faster adoption of the technology. The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) has long warned of this danger and Aberdeen Group recently joined in, finding in a survey that 47% of respondents consider "lack of skilled, internal, technical expertise" to be a key challenge facing the scale-up of existing RFID deployments.
The free IBM resources include a software application called the IBM RFID Integrated Solution Enablement, or RISE, which is a graphical toolkit for simulating how RFID data would flow across a modeled deployment. The second resource is an "educational toolkit" called the RFID Device Development Kit. It includes a repository of RFID information in the form of technical articles, examples, and tutorials, as well as APIs that developers and students can use to interface modeled RFID devices with IBM's middleware. Lastly, the Application Level Events (ALE) Preview for RFID allows developers to get familiar with writing programs that use the EPCglobal ALE 1.0 specification, a standardized interface to query RFID readers.
http://www.rfidupdate.com

ABI Assesses Telematics in Fleet Management
A new study by ABI Research, "Fleet Management Systems: Global Commercial Telematics Markets and Forecasts" offers a high-level perspective of the technologies and choices that are defining the increasingly complex market landscape of commercial telematics fleet management systems.
"Telematics vendors examining prospective markets must understand the particular user-requirements and market-barriers for these segments," says ABI analyst Steven Bae. He notes that fleet management telematics takes many forms, from a few cell phones to large, sophisticated, integrated commercial systems that may employ GPS, cellular or satellite-based technologies.
The ABI report reviews the current and future mix of commercial technologies, and identifies relevant applications. For example, systems employing cellular services are best suited for domestic fleets, or those that need frequent communications, such as short-haul trucking, for-hire, taxi, rental, and emergency service fleets. In contrast, satellite communications can provide (at greater hardware and subscription cost) global coverage and no roaming charges, meeting the needs of long-haul and international fleets. But, they fall short in the bandwidth needed for firmware upgrades. "It is complexities such as these that successful market players must navigate in today's competitive environment," notes Bae.
http://www.abiresearch.com

OMRON Introduces New EPC UHF Global Reader Platform
Omron RFID has expanded its EPC UHF reader product line with the new V750 platform, which is designed to support global frequency bands for the U.S. (915MHz), Europe (866MHz) and Japan (953MHz).
”Our new platform is the result of many customer and system integrator requests for an interrogator that can lower total installation costs, expand RFID applications and provide site analysis assistance.” says Bill Arnold, Omron RFID Chief Strategist. The V750 runs on a light real-time operating system (RTOS) that delivers consistent, repeatable performance to meet high-line speed and I/O requirements, the company says. It also supports Omron's recently announced electronic control antenna technology that provides direction of tag travel and eliminates “null points” in the read zone to achieve significant improvement for RFID tag read reliability.
http://www.omronrfid.com

Global Market for RFID Readers
The global market for RFID readers and reader modules grew to more than 35,500 unit shipments in 2005, according to new metrics released by ABI Research. In addition, the analysis reveals that reader unit volumes grew nearly 14 percent in Q1 2006 compared to Q1 2005. These market size findings were published as part of ABI Research's “RFID Reader Market Sizing Database,” which was compiled in collaboration with leading global RFID equipment manufacturers.
"By aggregating quarterly RFID reader shipment data from the industry's top suppliers, we are pleased to be the first in the industry to provide a truly accurate quantification of this fast-growing market," says Michael Liard, ABI Research's practice director for RFID.
The RFID Reader Market Sizing Database is one of a number of components that make up ABI Research's RFID Research Service: in addition it contains an RFID forecast database (examining technologies, applications, and markets through 2011), specialized research reports, the ABI Vendor Matrix, ABI Insights, analyst inquiry support, and regular updates that analyze RFID market developments quarter by quarter.
http://www.abiresearch.com

Savi Networks Partners With Embarcadero Systems
Savi Networks has entered into a strategic partnership with Oakland, Calif., firm Embarcadero Systems Corporation (ESC). Savi Networks operates SaviTrak, a global information network that uses RFID equipment and software to provide shippers with information about the identity, location and status of their ocean cargo containers and contents. ESC provides terminal automation and transportation security technology. Through the partnership, the two companies will combine SaviTrak cargo container tracking system with ESC's port automation services at ports where Savi Networks has existing contracts to deploy SaviTrak with terminal operators, including the Georgia Port Authority, the Trans Pacific Container Service Corp., Hutchison Port Holdings, Hong Ming Terminals and Stevedoring Co. and the Marine Terminals Corp.
http://www.rfidjournal.com

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