Electronic tagging system could replace barcodes

A team from Imec’s Holst Center in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, has developed a high-performance radio frequency identification (RFID) tag that could be cheaply mass-produced and prevents data transfer from being interrupted.

RFID tags contain a unique identification code and other useful information that is transmitted when it comes into contact with an electromagnetic field from a reader device.

Traditionally, rigid RFID tags have been made using silicon technology that provides high performance, but at a relatively high cost. The researchers believe their technology could be crucial to the development of cheap, high-performance RFID. 

‘Item-level tagging could allow vendors to implement automatic billing and inventory management,’ Kris Myny, an organic circuitry researcher at Imec, told The Engineer.

‘On top of these applications, such RFID tags could be integrated with sensors for smart RFID tags. In this way, they could be integrated into food packaging to provide customers with information on freshness or characteristics of this product.’