UCODE 8 Performance Drives Growth
The first quarter of 2019 proved to be another strong one for ’s portfolio of RAIN RFID ICs.
Not only did we ship more than two billion UCODE ICs, we also confirmed our number-one position for RAIN RFID tag IC revenue.
NXP’s ongoing success with RAIN RFID tags can be credited to the best-in-class performance of our latest implementation of the RAIN RFID architecture, UCODE® 8, which enables quick programming and fast, highly accurate inventory counts. What’s more, UCODE 8 ICs consume 20% less power than competing solutions.
The combination of high performance and low power consumption makes it possible to do faster, more reliable inventory counts and to manage items more easily in the supply chain.
UCODE 8 also enables smaller designs and at the same time, brings tagging capabilities to smaller, previously difficult to tag retail items such as cosmetics and food.
RAIN RFID Continues to Expand
The strength of NXP’s UCODE 8 portfolio also reflects strong growth for RAIN RFID overall. The RAIN RFID Alliance, the industry organization that promotes adoption of RAIN RFID technology, reports that revenue from RAIN RFID tag ICs grew 23% from 2017 to 2018, and they believe the market is on track to exceed 20 billion tag shipments annually for 2020 and beyond.
Key applications, including retail apparel and footwear, airline baggage tagging, and logistics services, will help drive this growth.
RAIN RFID Powers the IoT
RAIN RFID tags can be found across the Internet of Things (IoT), where they create a link between an exceptionally broad range of items and the cloud. RAIN RFID tags work without batteries and support batch reading, without direct line of sight.
Tags can be attached or embedded, flexible or hardened, and can store just basic identification numbers or be outfitted with password-protected memory to store additional information. They can work on their own, as item identifiers, or can easily combine with sensors, to track things like temperature or humidity.
RAIN RFID tags also come with high-end security features, in the form of crypto authentication, which protects tag identities from cloning and which ensures secure protection of the stored data.
NXP’s Technology
NXP’s UCODE 8 family supports a 16-bit identifier and enables insertion of the Brand ID during production, so the ID can be locked before shipment. The Brand ID is located in a separate, undisclosed memory location, for added protection from unauthorized access.
University of Auburn-certified inlays using NXP’s UCODE ICs are available in close to 30 different formats, and growing, so it’s easy to find the right configuration for a given application.
