Apr 15, 2005This article was originally published by RFID Update.
April 15, 2005—With all the excitement swirling around the introduction of GEN 2 products, it has been easy to forget that we are still firmly rooted in a GEN 1 world. Take for example Alien Technology's announcement this week that it has shipped 50 million first generation Class 1 tags. The company, founded and funded on the premise that its highly touted Fluidic Self Assembly manufacturing process would allow it to produce RFID tags more cheaply and in greater quantities than the competition, says that most of the demand has come from suppliers under mandates from Wal-Mart or the U.S. Department of Defense. According to Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Keith McDonald, tag demand is accelerating, and Alien is ramping up its manufacturing capacity to meet that demand.
Fifty million may seem like a big number, and it certainly is when compared to the modest amount of tags sold in years past. But in the years ahead, 50 million itself will seem paltry. With prognostications of hundreds of billions or even trillions of tags sold by 2015, tag production appears to only now have begun acceleration. The graphical representation of tag demand is often compared to a hockey stick: relatively flat demand for a number of years, followed by an abrupt surge that grows exponentially into the future. These last 12 months represent the turning point "elbow" of the hockey stick, as the increase in tag production over the next 12 to 36 months should bear out.
Read the press release at Alien Technology
