Polyera Corporation

Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags use radio waves to identify, track, sort, and detect persons and items. In these devices communication takes place between a reader (interrogator) and a transponder (a chip connected to an antenna) often called a tag.

RFID tags can either be active (powered by battery) or passive (powered by the reader field), and come in various forms including smart cards, tags, labels, watches and even embedded in mobile phones.

Currently, cost of RFID tags using conventional technologies are around 10-20 cents per tag, making them viable for tracking larger, more costly items such as cars, trains, and possibly even consumer goods at the palette- and crate- level, but still too expensive for individual item-level tracking, which most experts agree will require the cost to be reduced to the one-cent level.

The potential of item-level tracking is tremendous. Being able to tracking the shipment and purchase of individual items confers benefits to marketers (knowing what's being purchased when), operations researchers (tracking shipments, inventory, and replenishment times), and consumers (no more waiting in lines; simply walk out with your cart and the reader checks out everything automatically).

With their high manufacturing throughput and ability to be produced on inexpensive plastic substrate, printed electronics have the capacity to reach this lower cost.The potential market for such tags would be in the billions or trillions of tags per year, and has captured the attention of many companies.