We used to play tag as kids. The ‘tagged’ one had to chase the other players, to pass on the ‘tagged’ status. Well—that was then! Talk of tags now, and RFID tags spring to my mind, which then makes me wonder—is there scope for the whole world to come under the purview of tags?

It came, it saw, but somehow, at least in India, it hasn’t quite conquered. In spite of its immense potential, RFID (Radio-frequency identification) technology has not caught on the way industry pundits envisaged it would during its early days. Has it got lost in the slew of information technologies storming our world?

A new avatar for RFID tags
Actually, ‘got lost’ is an interesting metaphor. While it could be used in the sense of RFID having missed the opportunity to hit the jackpot, so to speak, a section of the industry believes that the ongoing development of EPC standards will catapult RFID to much fame by giving it the ability to truly get lost, by virtue of its miniaturisation. They affirm that RFID tags—both passive and active—will shrink still further, and simultaneously adopt more sophisticated processing power and memory, so as to resemble miniature computers. The miniaturisation of industry-tailored RFID tags will enhance its image as being a non-intrusive digital technology of immense use to various facets of life.

So—how small is small?
Hitachi, for instance, has announced ‘RFID powder’, or RFID tags that measure 0.05 x 0.05 mm and are 5 microns thick. These tags—to be launched in a few years—are made using semiconductor miniaturisation technology, and will use electron beams to write data on the chip substrates and include a 128-bit ROM for storing a unique 38-digit ID number. Interestingly, these chips are 64 times smaller than Hitachi’s currently available 0.4 x 0.4 mm mu-chips, and nine times smaller than the last-unveiled 0.15 x 0.15 mm sized prototype chips.

Evidently, change is happening at a fast pace in the RFID technology sector. Shailesh Deshmukh, territory manager, India, for Zebra Technologies, points out that miniaturisation will see RFID technology make inroads into “…a lot of applications where space is a constraint, in terms of attaching an RFID tag, as this needs to be concealed or hidden (such as in paper currency, gift certificates, etc).”

Fragility as a feature
The mass acceptance of any technology, as is well known, depends on its design. Alongside miniaturisation, work is underway to create an ‘intentionally fragile’ version of RFID tags. Interestingly, fragility is usually not associated with tech products—don’t we specially seek robust, long-lasting products that will give us good value for our hard-earned money? But, as far as RFID is concerned, fragility could actually fuel its demand across a range of sectors, including healthcare.

For instance, fragility as a feature could well be a selling point for Kodak’s edible, digestible RFID tag. Kodak’s patent for this ‘system to monitor the ingestion of medicines’, as it is called, describes these soft gelatin-covered tags as “…a system that uses intentionally fragile tags to provide useful information by identifying when such tags are destroyed. The system then responds to this basic change of state by providing a useful service. Such intentionally fragile tags can be composed of materials that can not only be ingested, but also digested, with the understanding that breakdown is a desirable quality and one that enables the tag materials to be eliminated in the standard manner. This fragile tag is also digestible and lends itself to applications such as being included in objects meant to be ingested, e.g., pills, lozenges and glycol strips.”