August 17, 2006
Gen2 RFID Chip Market Heating Up
Impinj, once the only manufacturer of RFID Gen 2 chips, has been joined by at least two other large semiconductor companies, including Texas Instruments and STMicroelectronics . Impinj helped draft the Gen 2 standards and a number of companies, including Texas Instruments, purchased chips from Impinj for their RFID inlays.
With an increasing number of applications demanding Gen2 chips, it's more than likely that there'll be a fight for market share. In fact, Texas Instruments gave up the inlay market and buying RFID chips from Impinj, and moved to manufacturing their own Gen2 chips. Philips is expected to join this manufacturing market soon.
The industries most expected to use RFID chips in general includes pharmaceutical/ healthcare and government, particularly the DoD (US Dept of Defense). They are arguably the biggest users of RFID technology, with maybe the possible exception of Wal-Mart.
Unfortunately for Impinj, according to the CRM News article I've linked to above, the pharmaceutical industry is leaning towards HF (high frequency) chips, whereas Impinj focused their efforts on the newer, more controversial UHF (ultra-high frequency) RFID chips.
Still, the demand for RFID Gen2 chips is expected to grow, and with it, more manufacturers will likely want a piece of the market.
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