Texas Instruments (TI) on 27 June 2005 announced a delivery milestone of pre-production samples of Gen2 UHF inlays and straps to label converter and printer customers.  TI will begin ramping to volume production in the millions beginning in July 2005, starting with its ultra-high frequency (UHF) EPC Gen2 inlays.  Gen 2 strap manufacturing will also begin in July.  Label converter and printer manufacturer partners are working to incorporate TI's Gen 2 inlays and straps into finished labels for use by consumer goods manufacturers in the global retail supply chain.

Initial production of TI’s Gen 2 inlays and straps will begin by using third party silicon. TI plans to offer its own Gen 2 silicon starting 4Q 2005.  According to Ms. Enu Waktola, UHF/Retail Supply Chain marketing manager, TI's decision to use third party chips in its initial offering of Gen2 inlays and straps was taken to help accelerate Gen2 adoption.  "The key point for customers to understand," Ms. Waktola said, "is that Gen2 is beginning to ship today, and this signals availability of highly reliable tag solutions that can meet the scalability and performance needs for end-users globally."  She added that, "with the availability of products based on the latest and globally deployable Gen 2 standard, from global manufacturers, the learning process to implement RFID should be less difficult and implementation should become easier."

Present plans call for TI's Gen2 chips to conform to the EPC 96-bit requirements.  She could not comment on whether additional user programmable memory, provided for in the Gen2 standard, will be included.  Customer demand, according to Ms. Waktola, will determine whether additional memory will be offered.

She indicated that many companies are still in the exploratory phase and doing a value assessment of RFID.  However, users who are more familiar with the technology are now learning more about their business processes and are finding new uses and better business cases.

According to Erik Michielsen, director of RFID and Ubiquitous Networks, ABI Research, "With its delivery of production ready Gen 2 products, TI has strengthened RFID industry momentum toward higher-volume supply chain RFID solutions, As reliable Gen 2 products reach the market, resellers, integrators, and end-users see less uncertainty and more reason to allocate additional financial and human resources to RFID supply chain deployments."