Fabless semiconductor start-up Impinj, Inc, whose patented self-adaptive silicon technology enables its high-performance radio frequency identification (RFID) products, and Texas Instruments have agreed to cooperate on the development of RFID products that are compliant with the Class 1, Generation 2 (Gen 2) standard recently ratified by EPCglobal Inc. This cooperation will ensure interoperability among Gen 2 products offered by the two companies, while enabling both companies to improve time-to-market for their Gen 2 offerings.

The Gen 2 standard, which applies to the UHF band centered around 900 MHz, overcomes limitations of EPCglobal's Class 0 and Class 1 specifications, providing enhanced features and improved performance such as robust operation in high-density environments, compliance with global spectrum regulations, superior tag throughput, field rewritability, enhanced security, privacy and robustness.

"TI's substantial inlay design and assembly capability coupled with their tremendous RFID market presence makes them an ideal partner as Impinj develops its Gen 2 product line," said William Colleran, president and CEO, Impinj. "Interoperability of Gen 2 products from multiple vendors is crucial for rapid adoption of RFID. Through our cooperation, Impinj and TI will ensure a supply of interoperable Gen 2 products from two complementary sources."

"Impinj and TI have collaborated throughout the evolution of EPCglobal's Gen 2 specification, and our cooperation has continued as we ensure interoperability of EPC Gen 2 products for introduction later this year. Impinj's UHF chip design capability will greatly augment TI's efforts to provide Gen 2 products quickly, so that customers can reap rewards from near-term RFID implementations," said Julie England, vice president of Texas Instruments and general manager of Texas Instruments RFid Systems.

Based on its 0.25-micron logic CMOS process, the company plans to offer Gen 2 chips and tags that will be interoperable with similar products from TI. Sampling is expected to begin in the second quarter with fully qualified production quantities by the third quarter. In addition, Impinj has also developed a reference design for readers that meet Gen 2's stringent demands for a dense environment.