Scaling up RFID Manufacturing – Addressing the Need for High Volume Production

ABSTRACT The RFID smart label market provides dramatic growth potential, just in regard to the numbers of labels needed in the next years. The predictions for the total number of labels by the year 2010 vary greatly, for instance, between 10 billion on the low side to 300 billion on the high side, whatever source one is looking up. However steep the increase will be, it will have to happen in a measured way with reliable processes. The great majority of the labels in the market today (all types combined) are manufactured based on flip chip technology and the challenge is how to ramp up to produce tens of billions of smart label inlets a year for a market that already announced the 5-cent label years ago. In the same fashion as the volumes go up, the manufacturing costs (assembly and material) are expected to go down.