Printed Electronics Has The Potential To Transform RFID Industry But When?

Filed in archive Implementation on May 25, 2006

Printed electronics can transform the RFID industry but only if they can get sufficient market acceptance and find appropriate applications but some believe that the impact would not be significant in the coming years.

A new research conducted by the ABI Research titled "Printed Electronics in the RFID Tag Industry." has studied all the possibilities of the applications and time frames for their introduction. The report explains which RFID markets and applications would adopt printed antennas and which would adopt printed transistors.

Sara Shah, industry analyst states:

Printed electronics-antennas, transistors and batteries-could eventually change the dynamics of the RFID industry. Applied directly to materials such as corrugated cardboard, they would allow manufacturers and distributors to create their own 'smart packaging' and bypass the whole long RFID tag production chain.

Although printed antennas operating in the HF and UHF bands are available as of now but their ideal market, UHF supply chain management is growing slowly as compared to the expectations whereas printed transistors are still not available and by the time they come in 2008 they would not be able to compete with silicon chips. In the case of printed batteries the market is not expected to develop until 2015.

If printed electronics wants to make its mark in the RFID industry it certainly needs to create an impact sooner than expected