What’s new with Gen 2

By Bob Trebilcock, Editor at Large -- Modern Materials Handling, 5/17/2005

Much has been made about the additional memory that the new Gen 2 tags will carry. But that’s only part of the story of these new RFID tags.

“The additional memory is important, but the biggest thing that Gen 2 brings to the table is higher levels of performance in several dimensions,” says Bill Colleran, president and CEO of chip and reader manufacturer Impinj (206-834-1100).

For starters, there is higher throughput. Data can be transmitted from a Gen 2 tag to a reader at up to 640 kilobits per second, versus less than 100 kilobits per second on other tags. That means up to 1,500 Gen 2 tags can be read per second. By comparison, Class O tags can be read at 300-400 per second, and Class 1 tags at half that rate.

“If you’re running a conveyor belt reading one carton at a time, that’s probably not important,” says Colleran. “But if you have a lift truck handling hundreds of cases on a pallet, this is a big deal.”

Gen 2 tags were also developed to work in a dense reader environment, like a distribution center that may have hundreds of readers at dock doors and conveyor belts.

“In other tag protocols, the signals from all those readers would interfere with one another,” Colleran says. “Gen 2 has a fairly eloquent frequency plan that allows the systems to work even when there are lots of readers transmitting.”

Colleran adds that a dense reader protocol isn’t available on all readers. For that reason, users who need that capability need to ask for it.

Gen 2 readers also have greater security built into them, providing users the ability to kill a tag or lock a tag in the field with 32 bit password technology.

While the technical achievements are important, they too are only part of the story, adds Kevin Ashton, vice president of marketing, ThingMagic (866-833-4069). Prior to joining ThingMagic, Ashton helped launch the Gen 2 standard as executive director of MIT’s Auto-ID Center.

“From my perspective, what’s really important is that Gen 2 is the first RFID standard that has had widespread industry support,” says Ashton.

Instead of two or three companies making chips, tags and readers, there are now ten or more producers in each of those disciplines. Ashton believes the increased competition will mean increased innovation that will create a mass market for RFID products.