PRESS RELEASES
Impinj and Alien Technology® Announce Supply Agreement for RFID Chips
September 7, 2005, Seattle, Washington — Impinj, Inc., the fabless semiconductor company whose patented Self-Adaptive Silicon® technology enables its high performance radio-frequency identification (RFID) products and Alien Technology Corporation, a market leader in UHF RFID tags, today announced a long-term agreement under which Impinj will provide its MonzaT Generation 2 (Gen 2) chips for inclusion in Alien®'s RFID inlay and strap products.
Monza, part of Impinj's GrandPrixT solution for robust RFID systems, is the world's first tag chip designed according to the Gen 2 standard promulgated by EPCglobal Inc., the industry consortium established to promote RFID in the global supply chain.
Alien Technology uses its patented manufacturing process, Fluidic Self Assembly (FSA®), to fabricate RFID inlays and straps in unprecedented volumes at very low cost. Utilizing Impinj's Monza chips, Alien will produce high performance inlays and straps targeting global customers in government, retail, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, transportation and other industries.
"Alien has established itself as a market leader in RFID for EPC applications, and is especially effective in using their FSA technology to address the tag assembly challenge faced by the RFID industry," said Dr. William Colleran, president and CEO, Impinj. "Under this arrangement, both Alien and Impinj leverage our complementary strengths - Impinj's chip design prowess and Alien's assembly capability - to deliver very high performance RFID products at competitive cost. We are delighted to announce our relationship which we expect will provide differentiated products that meet current and future market needs."
"Our collaboration with Impinj on Gen 2 products is a natural extension of our combined efforts in the EPC standards development process," remarked Dr. Steve Smith, CTO and Founder, Alien Technology Corporation. "We are impressed by the time-to-market and performance of Impinj's Monza silicon, and we look forward to offering the first high volume, low cost production availability of Gen 2 tags and inlays in the industry to our meet customers' needs."
Impinj's Monza chips provide the benefits enabled by the Gen 2 protocol. In addition, Monza features excellent range, robustness and the option for tags that are less orientation sensitive when used in a dual antenna configuration. Monza was designed to ensure excellent RF impedance and ESD insensitivity, which in turn enable high speed inlay and strap manufacturing. Alien expects to sample Monza-based inlays and straps in September with volume shipments commencing in 4Q 2005.
About Impinj, Inc.
Impinj, Inc. is a fabless semiconductor company whose patented Self-Adaptive Silicon® technology enables its two synergistic business lines: high performance RFID products and cost-effective semiconductor intellectual property (SIP). A leading contributor to the RFID standards for high volume supply-chain applications worldwide, Impinj leverages its technical expertise and industry partnerships to deliver the GrandPrixT solution, comprising tags, readers, software and systems integration to offer RFID that just worksT. Impinj's innovative SIP products, core to the company's RFID tags, are licensed to leading semiconductor companies worldwide, allowing them to cost-effectively integrate crucial nonvolatile memory (NVM) alongside analog and digital functionality on a single chip. Impinj's SIP products include the popular AEONT memory, the world's first rewriteable NVM technology compatible with logic CMOS manufacturing, and AEFuseT, the world's first rewriteable fuse architecture. For more information, visit www.impinj.com.
Impinj, Self-Adaptive Silicon, GrandPrix and Monza are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Impinj, Inc.
About Alien Technology
Alien Technology provides UHF Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) products and services to customers in retail, consumer goods, manufacturing, defense, transportation and logistics, pharmaceuticals and other industries. Organizations use Alien's RFID products and services to improve the effectiveness, efficiency and security of their supply chains, logistics and asset tracking operations. Alien's products include RFID tags, RFID readers and related training and professional services. Alien's patented Fluidic Self Assembly (FSA) technology and related proprietary manufacturing processes are designed to enable the manufacture of high volume, low cost RFID tags.
Alien was founded in 1994. The company's facilities include: its corporate headquarters in Morgan Hill, CA; an RFID tag manufacturing facility in Fargo, ND; the Alien RFID Solutions Center, in the Dayton, Ohio area, and sales offices in the US, Europe and Asia. Alien is a member of EPCglobal. More information about Alien is available at www.alientechnology.com.
Alien, Alien Technology, the Alien logo, Squiggle and FSA, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Alien Technology Corporation in the United States and other countries. Copyright 2007 Alien Technology Corporation. All rights reserved.
