The RFID Reader

Texas Instruments Products Tagged With RFID

It was announced today that Wal-Mart, in cooperation with Texas Instruments’ Educational Productivity Solutions business division, has started supplying RFID tags to the cases and pallets of calculates that are being sold within its store.

Texas Instruments is the not the first Wal-Mart supplier to do this as many of Wal-Mart’s other suppliers have started carrying out this process for the past year.

Last October, Wal-Mart extended its use of RFID tags by making sure at least 500 of its stores were enable with RFID readers.

According to a spokesperson for Texas Instruments, the use of RFID tagging on its calculators will help ensure that enough calculators are in stock for the start and duration of the school year.

VeriChip's Releases IPO

VeriChip, which is also known as the Human Chip Firm, has released on Friday an Initial Public Offering of $45.8 million.

The company is well-known for its manufacture of a microchip that can be implanted in humans. These microchips use RFID technology, and plans are being made to have the chips “injected with the rice-sized tag”.

VeriChip hopes someday to have a person’s medical records contained within the chips. Last September, the CEO of VeriChip, Jon Merriman, allowed himself to be tagged. The tag does not contain his medical records, but at present his chip contains information about end of life care that he would like. This is called a living will.

It will be interesting to keep track of how successful the company will become, before this IPO, VeriChip has lost approximately $7.7 million spread over a four year period.

Dow Chemical Forms Agreement With EPCglobal US

An agreement has been signed by the Dow Chemical Company and EPCglobal US, as announced on sdcexec.com, in a effort to help develop the Electronic Product Code for RFID. Under this new agreement, the Dow Chemical Company will be able to further expand their research into their Corporate RFID/GPS Strategy.

Corporate Vice President Dave Kepler is just thrilled about the new venture, “"Joining EPCglobal US enables us to take our use of RFID/GPS technologies to the next level, contributing to the development of industry standards for RFID and helping drive increased usage of RFID/GPS to enhance the efficiency and security throughout the chemical industry supply chain," he said during an interview.

EPC is clearly one of the new “buzz” phrases and more companies are utilizing its ability to help them tag and track their inventory.

Impinj, Inc Secures Funding

In a press release yesterday, the semiconductor company Impinj, Inc stated that it had secured the necessary 26.5 million dollar funding that it needed by contributions from new and existing investors.

Impinj, Inc is one of the leading manufacturers of high performance RFID products. The company expects to use the money to increase its research and product development in the semiconductor field.

As stated by Dr William Colleran, CEO and President of Impinj, Inc, "This new injection of capital allows Impinj to maintain our excellent progress delivering the semiconductor solutions that our customers in the explosive RFID and the nascent embedded nonvolatile markets are demanding. "We will continue to aggressively drive our product development and operations to maintain our leadership positions in those markets."