The MIT Enterprise Forum RFID Special Interest Group is hosting a meeting on the Future of Printed Electronics featuring speakers from Kovio, PolyIC and IDTechEx on Tuesday February 19.

Over the next 15 years the money spent on RFID tags will peak then rapidly fall. Perhaps RFID will repeat the history of barcodes - companies today do not pay per barcode – they are printed usually during the package production process and are virtually free – just a tiny bit of printed ink.

So too will RFID tags evolve for the highest volume opportunities – fully printed logic and memory circuits using cheap materials, enabling sub one cent tags. The silicon chip, with its huge manufacture and material cost and interconnect challenges will be relegated to tags requiring only the highest performance in terms of memory, speed of operation and sophistication.

Wishful thinking? Tell that to the 1500 organizations developing printed electronics in a major way. Printed electronics is seeing the chemical, electronic and printing industries collaborate as never before. For if one can print transistors, RFID tags will be one of the smallest markets they intend to dominate, given the possibilities for low cost dispersed manufacturing of simple electronic circuits. Indeed, not all are prioritizing RFID. Printed electronics enable low cost bill board displays, transparent flexible solar cells, large area sensors and logic devices and much more.

The investment in printed electronics development grossly exceeds that invested in RFID. See for example Samsung investing $500 Million in 12 months for next generation “organic” displays, or one photovoltaic company raising $200 Million to commercialize non silicon solar cells. All involved agree that this market will be bigger than the $200 Bn silicon industry – by being able to do new things and meet challenges that silicon cannot – such as the sub one cent RFID tag.

Of course, initially there will be comprises – you won’t see the UHF EPC gen 2 tag with it’s 40,000+ transistors replicated by printed transistors anytime soon because current printed electronics can make hundreds, but not yet thousands of transistors. That will change, but so too possibly will the industry, perhaps coming full circle – remember the simple licenseplate-only RFID tag that the MIT Auto ID Center envisaged before industry overlaid additional requirements in the specification? – that is possible now with printed electronics.

When, how, who and why? It is all discussed at the MIT Enterprise Forum RFID Special Interest Group on Tuesday February 19, 2008, at the MIT Stata Center room 124 from 6pm to 8pm. The session is free to attend. For more details and to pre-register please visit this website. /PR IDTechEx