Smartcode Corp. announces world's first 5 cent RFID tag

SmartCode Corp., manufacturer of RFID hardware solutions, announced at the 2006 RFID Journal Live conference that it will offer the world's first 5 cent RFID tags.

The company said in a statement: 'This historical milestone puts SmartCode as the first ever company in the world to reach the 5 cent tag. Since the formation of the EPC standard in 1999, the target tag price for a sustainable, ROI driven RFID market was greatly depended on the availability of the 5 cent RFID tags.'

In the course of the past seven years, the 5 cent target was considered as a true technological challenge for the RFID industry, and SmartCode is the first ever company to offer these RFID tags in these prices.

‘SmartCode Corp. is delighted with reaching this remarkable milestone of the world's first 5 cent RFID tag,’ said Avi Ofer, SmartCode Corp. president. ‘With no other Pure Play RFID Company offering such a variety of RFID solutions, both passive and active, including LF, HF, UHF and Microwave, supporting multiple international standards and operating globally with an established presence in the US, Europe and Asia, SmartCode is well positioned to continue its global leadership in this rapidly growing, multi billion dollar market. SmartCode world's first 5 cent RFID tag further demonstrates our technological superiority and our unique leadership position as being second to none in the market.’

Available in quantities of 100 million tags, the world's first 5 cent RFID tags provide an important path to the mass adoption of RFID worldwide. Suppliers of Wal-Mart, Department of Defense, Target Corp., Albertson's, Tesco in the UK and Metro in Germany can now have a reliable, low cost source for their pallet, case and item level tagging with a clear path to justify Return On Investment (ROI) for RFID.

The introduction of RFID in the supply chain is widely regarded as the replacement to barcodes in tracking goods. Unlike barcode systems, RFID does not require line-of-sight or any other orientation from the tag’s side and greatly reduces the manual costs associated with the reading of each barcode label. RFID tags possess a unique ID that enables them to store information about the product, like features and manufacturing date. Based on research of the Auto ID Center in MIT, which later became EPCglobal, the demand for low cost RFID tags with a 5 cent price tag, have indicated a huge demand from world leading retailers and manufacturers. The Auto ID Center has created a demand table for the estimated number of RFID tags to be used by retailers and manufacturers worldwide.