We have been dreaming for years as to how one day we may be able to see RFID tags being printed into the packaging materials directly. We got an indication about our dreams being realized when Texas Instruments and Smurfit-Stone demonstrated a prototype RFID enabled cardboard box which had an RFID antenna printed on its inner layer of paperboard last year. I thought our dreams were getting realized ultimately but it doesn't seems to be possible as of now since it is being said that the method which was adopted was both costly and causing trouble to the corrugate-manufacturing processes.

Now probably a number of companies are working on this area to make it a reality as soon as possible. Parelec and Tagsys have developed RFID enabled packaging which is less troublesome as compared to printing of antenna and a chip is attached for forming an inlay which is comparatively inexpensive. On the other hand Yeon Technologies too is claiming that it has developed RFID enabled packaging material which won't cause any trouble during the manufacturing process.

As per the process developed by Tagsys and Parelec, the antenna is directly printed onto the layer of corrugate packaging material with the aid of Parmod VLT conductive ink of Parelec. The companies have developed a means of attaching complete RFID inlay. This technique is expected to cast less effect on the production process too. Very soon the companies will also be conducting a pilot to test the boxes in real world environment

On the other hand Yeon Technologies will be revealing details about their Smart Box product in the second half of 2007 in which the entire Gen 2 inlay is embedded into the corrugate material and this too is an inexpensive approach when compared with printing of antenna onto packaging.

Both the ideas look good on paper but how far they would go in making a mark in the RFID industry still needs to be seen.