The relatively high cost of RFID tags is often cited as a roadblock to adoption for companies that do not have to deal with usage mandates from retailers, such as Wal-Mart, and the US government’s Department of Defense. The magic price point for widespread adoption is sometimes thought to be 5 cents per tag (although no one can argue that the seemingly improbable one-cent tag would be a tipping point).
Avery Dennison’s 7.9-cent inlay, which the company said it could manufacture in high volumes, however, doesn’t mean the industry is now just a few cents away from the 5-cent tag. An inlay, which consists of an RFID chip and antenna, is just one component of an RFID tag and does not represent the tag’s total cost.
Still, it’s a step in the right direction. The new AD-220 tag would fit into a 4-inch x 0.5-inch RFID label and has features a 96-bit read-write memory and an operating frequency of 902-928MHz. AD-220 is classified as Generation 2, which is expected to become the global RFID standard.
Clinton, South Carolina-based Avery Dennison RFID also said it had lowered the cost of its Gen 1 AD-210 and AD-410 inlays to 7.9 cents.
