Impinj Introduces Two New Gen 2 Chips

"Adding just 32 bits wouldn't have provided enough memory for the current needs of most end users," Colleran explains, "and would not have been cost-effective for us to produce, while more than 64 bits of memory is more than most users need, so we couldn't have justified the cost." Still, he expects the need for more memory to grow as RFID deployments become more sophisticated and end users' needs change. "Think back to early PCs. People never thought they'd need more than a 32-megabyte hard drive."

Monaco/64 is the first in a line of high-memory RFID chips Impinj is planning, and the company expects to market chips combining both authenticating IDs and extra user memory. Colleran says both the Monza/ID and Monaco/64 chips carry a "5 to 25 percent" premium over the cost of the Monza chip, which the company introduced in April 2005 (see Impinj Announces Gen 2 Tags, Reader). He would not reveal what tag makers are paying for the Monza, claiming it varies greatly on volume.

Last September, EPCglobal certified the Monza chip as conformant to the Gen 2 standard (see EPCglobal Certifies Gen 2 Hardware). The Monza/ID and Monaco/64 are "minor variations" of the original Monza chip, Impinj says, and it is not yet clear whether it will be required to recertify or take any additional steps to certify the new chips with EPCglobal. Until recently, the Monza was the only Gen 2 chip available in large quantities. Last week, Texas Instruments (see Texas Instruments Rolling Out Its Gen 2 Chips) announced a rollout of its Gen 2 chip, which does not offer extra user-rewritable memory. This chip does carry a unique ID but can be overwritten, and is designed not as a tool for authentication but as a means for tag makers to singulate chips during the tag-making process. This week, STMicroelectronics announced it was now shipping large quantities of its Gen 2 chip to tag makers (see STMicro Ramps Up Production of Its XRAG2 Chip). That chip holds a total of 432 bits of memory, which can be configured to accommodate either a 256-bit EPC or a 128-bit EPC and 128 bits of user programmable memory.

Colleran says Impinj shipped 300 million to 500 million Monza chips to tag makers this year, in addition to the 50 million it shipped in 2005. Drew Nathanson, director of the AIDC/RFID technologies practice at Venture Development Corp., has estimated that 175 million finished Gen 2 tags have thus far been produced.

The Monza/ID and Monaco/64 chips are based on the Monza chip's design. Thus, Impinj says, tag makers can make complete Gen 2 inlays by combining them with the same antenna designs used with the Monza chip. Impinj is selling the chips in wafer form.