March 4, 2008 – We check with Kerry Krause, Marketing Director for Intel’s RFID efforts. When they announced their new “reader chip” a year ago, RFID Street predicted “it could be the biggest market driver yet.”

What type of end user applications are among those purchasing the R1000 powered readers – or is it across the board?

Krause: We have worldwide coverage, with customers in the US, Europe and APAC. Also, there is a wide range of reader form factors now available to address the broad spectrum of end-user applications.

Would you say then the main advantage of the chip is bringing reader prices down?

Krause: It is across the board. Long range fixed readers for dock doors, fork trucks and conveyors. Handheld readers of various designs. Embedded modules which are being integrated in traditional applications like printers, but also in new innovative applications like Ford trucks and vans.

But is there a functional enhancement, or does the chip mostly create great pricing efficiencies?

Krause: There are a number of advantages to a highly integrated transceiver like the R1000. It does help reduce costs, but perhaps more importantly it enables much smaller reader designs that consume less power. This combination of benefits is enabling our readers to innovate at a system level in the design of their readers, which in turn enables end-users use the technology in new, innovative ways.

The recent announcement by Ford is a good example of that domino effect – the R1000 enabled ThingMagic to develop are really small, high performance module. It is quite compact, delivers high performance, consumes a lot less power than previous high performance reader designs, and is lower priced than previous high performance readers.
Ford was then able to integrate their module and create a whole new usage model for UHF RFID.

We think embedded RFID is one of the exciting growth areas we are seeing. Are there other consumer apps in the pipeline for the chip?

Krause: There are a number of exciting, new applications being developed worldwide. However, I cannot comment on products that have not been announced. Regarding announced products, additional innovative products based on the R1000 include a CF-card reader and a USB stick reader, both developed by Kenetics out of Singapore. Also, in Korea, UHF RFID is being used in cell phones with a number of consumer applications.

If this chip is enabling reader manufacturers to lower their costs, or to reduce the footprint of a module, why wouldn't a manufacturer use it? Competition from other such chips, or inertia?

Krause: I have a very broad spectrum of reader manufacturers developing readers with the R1000 and I expect that we'll see many new customers launch these products this year. However, there are some companies who already had readers in the market when we launched the R1000 and they are continuing to sell those readers. I do think that the introduction of more R1000-based readers will continue to change the landscape in this space.

Does the chip work for both HF and UHF?

Krause: The R1000 is a UHF transceiver. It does not support the HF band. I do have some customers who have created combo UHF/HF readers, using the R1000 for UHF and another radio for HF.

Is Intel planning on supporting the reader manufacturers with the equivalent of an "Intel Inside" campaign?

Krause: While I do not have an "Intel Inside" program, my customers are able to use an "Intel RFID Technology" text treatment in their marketing collateral.

How does "Intel corporate" look at RFID – as a tiny niche, or are they excited like this is the beginning of other RFID-related growth for the company?

Krause: There are a couple of perspectives on RFID here. Intel is increasingly using RFID in our own manufacturing processes and supply chain. Also, Intel views RFID as a disruptive technology that will be broadly adopted across industries and affect the way enterprises operate and do business.

Intel has long had a vision of pushing intelligence to the edge of enterprise networks, and for what we call ubiquitous computing or machine-to-machine computing where enterprise transactions or activity are initiated without the need for human intervention. RFID is seen as an early example of that type of technology evolution.

What is the most surprising thing you have run across in your working with the RFID industry?

Krause: The pace of innovation. It seems like there are several new applications emerging for this technology every month. While retail and supply chain applications received most of the early attention, I am seeing a lot more innovation outside of those areas and it's happening worldwide.

Once word was out in the industry, did people approach you with wacky ideas on how they might use the R1000?

Krause: Yes. There are a lot of creative people that are dreaming up ways to take advantage of this technology. For example, I was talking to a gentleman at a conference last week that is using RFID to link video of personal experiences with objects. He put a tag on his snowboard and linked video of him snowboarding to the tag, so that when he reads the tag with his PDA it starts playing the video. He did the same thing with a fishing lure and video of his daughter fishing.

In our RFID Street column, our vote was to have all of the DVD player manufacturers use your chip to read whether any given DVD was legit, or else not allow them to play. Has anyone ever really talked about doing that?

Krause: Yes, there have been discussions about embedding RFID tags in media like DVDs, both for traditional supply chain tracking but also for authentication. I don't know that we'll see it used for authentication, but you never know.