CORVALLIS, Ore. - A new "microchip" technology that is now emerging from university laboratories may soon offer electronic identification tags at such low cost they could find numerous new applications, increase business efficiency and change the face of retail shopping all over the world.
Recent breakthroughs in this technology were first developed at the University of Pittsburgh and are now being further perfected and tested in collaboration with engineers at Oregon State University.
The goal, scientists say, is to take the radio frequency identification tags that have existed for some time and make their cost so low, and size so small, that they could be produced for pennies apiece and used for mass market applications, including the replacement of "bar codes" now in common use.
Unlike bar codes that provide very limited information and must be scanned one at a time, a radio frequency tag can transmit larger amounts of information to any nearby receiver. Retail shoppers, for instance, might just bag up their merchandise and roll the cart by a receiver. Each item in the cart would broadcast its data to the receiver, and the shopper could get an instant, comprehensive description of what they bought, then pay for it and be out the door.
"This technology is incredibly hot, it's just a matter of time before it becomes much more widely used," said Richard Billo, professor and head of the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at OSU. "We need to get the costs down, develop standards and then start working on applications. And there will be many applications."
One of the greatest obstacles, Billo said, was recently addressed in pioneering research by Marlin Mickle, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. Mickle created a way to design and build a surprisingly efficient antenna, which the radio tags must have, that was more than three inches long but etched on top of a silicon chip in a spiral so tight that it fit on a square slightly less than one-eighth of an inch on a side.
This dramatic reduction in the size of the antenna opened the door to create tiny computer chips that included both the radio and antenna. This device could be produced at a much lower cost than the approaches now being used, and still relay significant amounts of information. No battery is necessary to provide electricity - the chips can be designed so the receiver sends out a radio signal that both powers the identification chip and then receives the signal that it broadcasts.
The University of Pittsburgh has several patents or patent applications under way on this technology, and is working closely with OSU researchers for further testing and product development.
One of the immediate goals, Billo said, will be to develop standards for this technology that are approved by the American National Standards Institute, or ANSI. Work then needs to be done to better refine the product, test its performance and see what products can evolve from it.
OSU just finished one testing program in this area over the past 18 months with a $100,000 grant from the Oakridge National Laboratory, and support may now be sought from private industry for continued studies in that area.
Many of the nation's large companies are quite interested in the technology, Billo said.
"A tag that could broadcast information about the product to which it's attached could have an enormous range of uses," Billo said. "You could use them in warehouse management, or to send out information about hazardous materials that may require special handling in a shipment. They could hold and transmit updated medical records, or be used in identification cards. They might be able to prevent counterfeiting of paper currency."
And the truly mass applications, everyone agrees, would be in retailing. The checkout of products at a store could be made much quicker and easier, and self-checkout would be more practical. Shoplifting might be reduced or practically eliminated. Inventory management would be precise and immediate, and data about products might include not only the identity of the product but also its manufacturer, expiration date and other information.
To make such mass applications possible, the cost of these radio transmitter chips will have to be very, very low. Exactly how low that cost will be is still unknown, and ultimately would depend on producing such chips by the billions. So the mass merchandising possibilities are still some years away, researchers say.
"At OSU, we're very excited about helping to bring this technology to the commercial marketplace, do the testing it will require and be active in developing applications," Billo said. "It could be an area of considerable growth for the university's research and educational programs, and another important step forward for our goal of developing the OSU College of Engineering into one of the top 25 in the nation."
Richard Billo, 541-737-2875