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LOS ANGELES — Impinj Inc. has acquired Intel Corp.'s radio frequency identification operation, along with the R1000 RFID reader chip it has renamed Indy R1000, the Seattle-based company reported Thursday. The reader chip was developed by Intel's New Business Initiatives incubator unit. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Intel, the Santa Clara, Calif., semiconductor company known for its processing power, last year unveiled the R1000, an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) that combines 90% of the discrete components found in passive ultra high frequency (UHF) RFID reader transceiver on one chip. The R1000 transmits, modulates, receives and processes the radio communications for EPC Gen 2 tags. It requires less power to function because the discrete components are combined on one chip, so they are not powered up individually.
Impinj will license the patents through Intel to expand the chip portfolio. Based on the R1000, the company has begun work on a product roadmap to improve performance, provide lower deployment costs, expand functionality and allow engineers to create a smaller device.
Impinj is expected to release spinoffs of the Indy R1000. The first should become available in the next few months, according William Colleran, the company's president and CEO. "We now own 100% market share of the reader chip business and our customers need to know their investments in new products based on the Indy R1000 have long legs," he says, adding discussions with Intel had been ongoing for months, but "talks got serious about two months ago."
Through the transactions, Impinj gained the product line, the personnel who developed and support the R1000, and the more than 40 customers, including Alien Technology, CAEN RFID, deister, Kinetics, ThingMagic, Unitech and Sirit that embed the R1000 into devices. About 20 have introduced products based on the Indy R1000 such as handheld modules and portable devices.
For example, Germany-based IDTronic in June introduced an ultra high frequency developer's kit for RFID gates based on the R1000 transceiver chip.
While many readers manufactured today are about the size of a hardbound 8-inches by 5-inches book, those built on the Indy R1000 chip are much smaller, some the size of a PCMA card. Analysts suggest the chip's superior performance in a compact size has prompted design engineers to look past conventional applications into embedded modules, printers and more.
Uses for the chip are as varied as the imagination, Colleran says. Companies have already begun looking into building RFID readers based on the Indy R1000 into video game consoles and toys. "In Nintendo's Wii there are sensors that know the orientation of the joystick, but there are other things you can interact with, such as nearby objects in the room, as opposed to just those on the screen," he says.
Other future applications that consumers can expect rely on cellphones that allow consumers to download information to compare pricing and features on televisions or computers in retail stores, for example. These applications are similar to features in two-dimensional (2-D) bar codes or near field communication (NFC). However, Colleran says, it will take wide-spread adoption before you see RFID in cellphones.
Nevertheless, the chip could jumpstart industry adoption by enabling a variety of applications, according to Michael Liard, research director, RFID and contactless at ABI Research. "Impinj has always known the importance of owning the air interface, the communication link, and early on identified the importance of owning the silicon, not only for tags, but readers, too," he says.
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