RFID Switchboard: Your Search has ended NOW you are connected

#1 (**permalink**) 10-22-2009, 11:42 AM

Issue #211 | Oct. 22, 2009 | by Andy Kowl

Talk about Gen 2 or even Gen 3 all you want. There is no doubt ratification of the EPC Global Class 1, Generation 2 standards in December 2004 were a watershed event in the RFID revolution.

The next giant RFID game changers are about to be introduced in 2010.

"We will be bringing out multi-frequency HF and UHF tags . . . next year," Patrick Henzen of NXP unintentionally announced at Taiwan RFID this month. They have the market clout to make that mean something, with a deep footprint from selling as many as 20-30% of all RFID chips, according to analysts.

. . . and that might be the smallest of his two revelations.

The debate about "HF vs. UHF" has been raging for as long as there has been the new wave of RFID. We’ve covered this topic plenty on RFID Street; and we still get proponents of one arguing against the other. I guess NXP is asking, "Why can't we all get along?"

HF currently outsells UHF tags 2:1 around the world today, according to IDTechEx. This is due mostly to the use of HF in transit, sports ticketing and other identity cards, in addition to HF's short-range advantages for contactless payment cards. Combination tags had been introduced by a small Japanese firm a couple years ago, but the need was not yet there and the company did not have the heft to affect the market. NXP does.

More than Moore
Allowing your unique ID to be transmitted over either frequency can be insurance for nervous adopters in markets like pharmaceutical e-pedigrees. It can also serve two masters: CPG UHF supply chain and coming consumer apps (see below).

"More than Moore," is how Patrick Henzen described it during his presentation at this major Asian trade show, referring to Moore's Law, the IT mantra which says the number of transistors in an integrated circuit—computing power—will double every two years. RFID development is eclipsing that pace, Henzen, NXP Semiconductors Business Development Manager, is convinced.

Of course like many overnight sensations, the impact of this will not be felt overnight.

We announced the similar game-changing nature of Intel's introduction of the UHF R1000 reader chip in April, 2007. The ability of an RFID tag to read, in addition to being read, is the lynchpin of any real Internet of Things, that shadowy concept underlying RFID. Since acquired by Impinj, the R1000 chips are still ascending to their place in the RFID market and are not yet The Promised Land – still there is not doubt of their ultimate importance in allowing RFID applications that could not exist otherwise.

Using some common sensors
Also in 2010, NXP will bring out the first off-the-shelf, passive combination RFID/sensor chips. The first three versions will combine ID and temperature, humidity and pH. A bit further down the line will come CO2, O2 and C2H4. "More than Moore" means these are coming soon, also.

It is no shock that more memory, dual frequency, dual interface, sensors and crypto are headed our way in RFID, but Henzen makes it sound more immediate and reminds us how exciting this space is. "We are doing research that will add time measurement in silicon, using very low power," he says. Around the corner are in-silicon, real-time clock MEMS oscillators—ultra-low power micro controllers for simple shelf life calculations, ticking off the life range of a product.

He sees the value in taking RFID "from 'where?' to 'fresh?' and from 'genuine?' to 'safe?'"

In RFID Street #150 we "predict(ed) the combination of RF and ID and sensors will become more and more prevalent, eclipsing all uses of RFID other than embedded, which is destined to reign as number one in the long run." Sensors have been part of some of active RFID tags for years. Next year will be their first commercially viable, on-tag use with passive RFID.

It will still take a while to have widespread impact; but look for more of these to come from many sources.

Reaching out briefly and informally to some other IC market-makers, none of them will offer combo tags near-term. Neither Avery Dennison nor Alien have such plans; and although Impinj is "actively exploring sensor-enabled UHF RFID chips," Senior Director Jim Donaldson says, "we have no current plans to bring a combo HF/UHF tag to market. The reason is that UHF can do anything HF can do, but not vice versa. UHF is an upgrade to legacy HF, and we are looking to the future not to the past."

Told you there are still two camps.

RFID is about to transition from B2B to B2C, according to NXP's Henzen, who sees the future all in added value. "We expect NFC-enabled phones to hit the market in significant numbers by early next year," he said. This will begin to allow consumers to use cell phones to read promotional, health, safety and other messages, courtesy of RFID. (Speaking of camps, I've noticed lately less folks in the NFC camp denying their technology is RFID.)

To finish up with a couple of more NXP good ideas (you'd think I have stock), they are releasing tags with "dual-side contacts for fast positioning – non pick & place." Also coming soon to a solution provider near you, long-range crypto tags.

Taiwan RFID was part of the Taipei International Electronics Show produced by that country's trade council, www.TAITRA.com.tw

#2 (**permalink**) 10-25-2009, 11:21 PM

Hi Andy,
I think that calling NXP's multi-frequency tag " a game changer" is a rather far reach. I have no doubt that NXP's engineers have come up with an excellent performing technical approach but the big question is "what problem will it address?" The debate around HF vs UHF has been driven by vendors attempting to position their technology. I had hoped that the RFID market was finally moving towards indentifying a problem and then applying the appropriate technology. As many of the other vendors have stated, there doesn't really seem to be a user problem that will be addressed by a multi-frequency tag. I am more concerned that this will just add more fog to the RFID market.

I do agree that there is a valid end user desire for sensors that can be remotely monitored and it is likely that RFID will address a good portion of this market. I anticipate that two years from now we will look back and suggest to NXP that they should not have wasted their development talent on the multi-frequency tag and focused more on solving true market needs.

Just my thoughts,
Fraser Jennings
F Jennings Consulting

#3 (**permalink**) 10-26-2009, 12:56 PM

Fraser, I am afraid this indicates I did not do a good enough job making my point.

The sensor-combo elements are a no-brainer in that companies are already combining RFID with common sensors like temp and humidity. Combining them on an off-the-shelf tag simply saves you the trouble, and the engineering, of combining them -- and less steps + less engineering = lower costs, of course.

I suspect it also confirms for some buyers that passive (i.e. cheaper) tags can be used for what they may have thought active RFID was necessary to accomplish.

The combo UHF/HF chips perform a few advanced services. One could be huge for UHF item-level tagging in supply chains and especially in closed-loop, retail success stories like American Apparel and Marks & Spencer.

It is often forgotten that item-level tagging is more common than case & pallet tagging. And it is expected that HF will be the first RFID-readers generally available in standard cell phones and PDA's (starting any day now). Combine these facts, and you can see that for Marks & Spencer, for example, to include sales information on their tag which customers can read in HF adds little cost since the UHF infrastructure is already in place. Tests have already shown this increases sales.

Last on this, if and when an industry either goes in two directions at once -- like pharmaceuticals in HF and UHF -- or is being tugged in two directions by vendors, a combo tag allows a manufacturer to still gain the chain-of-custody advantages. Although we have reported clear evidence the pharma supply chain will end up as UHF, there are plenty of naysayers. The combo tag would provide the industry time to calm down and mature.

In fact, today we are running a story about how a Spanish chain, Messcalino, is using UHF with EAS technology for similar-but-different, dual purposes.