Impinj Launches Industrys First RFID Gen 2 System

Impinj announced on Monday the roll-out of its GrandPrix, a set of RFID tags and readers touted as the first RFID system to comply with EPCGlobals emerging Generation 2 protocol.

In an interview with CIO Insight, Impinj Inc. President and CEO William Colleran said that GrandPrix includes the new Monza Gen 2 RFID tag chip, along with Speedway, a multiprotocol radio-frequency identification reader, and new antennae.

The new Speedway reader supports both Monza and other Gen 2 and EPCGlobal Inc. Gen 1 RFID tag chips, including both Class 0 and Class 1 Gen 1 chips.

Impinj previously introduced Zuma, a Gen 1 Class 0 chip billed as the first field-rewriteable RFID tag in the industry.

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The vendor is targeting its new GrandPrix family mainly at distribution-warehouse applications, Colleran said.

Although there will be future iterations of RFID beyond Gen 2, Gen 2 brings big improvements over Gen 1 in terms of accuracy, performance speeds and global interoperability, according to Colleran.

“In Gen 1, you had tags that would only work in certain countries. Gen 2 tags will work in all countries,” Colleran said.

GrandPrix also meets Gen 2s requirement for dense-reader operation, according to the CEO.

This new mode is designed to provide better accuracy and performance in crowded warehouse environments by preventing interference among RFID devices.

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