San Francisco -- Texas Instruments Inc. today will announce an RFID chip that complies with the Electronic Product Code Generation 2 (EPC Gen 2) specification. The latest RFID spec, designed for a global market, operates in the UHF band centered around 900 MHz.

In a quest for better power efficiency and higher performance, TI has become the first company to use a Schottky diode in an RFID device instead of standard silicon. The Schottky diode is "a very efficient rectifier," said Tony Sabetti, TI's director of RFID retail supply chain products. When the chip is turned on, the diode allows for only a small voltage drop, which results in little power loss, he said.

Schottky diodes have usually required additional processing power--which meant higher cost. However, TI developed a method to use one at almost no additional cost, Sabetti said. He declined to detail it.

The use of the Schottky diode improves RF conversion, thus increasing chip-to-reader sensitivity. That means higher read rates and throughput, in addition to a longer read range, said Sabetti.

TI further lowered the power by going for a smaller geometry. The chip, scheduled for volume shipment in August, is the first to use a 130-nanometer analog process node, the most advanced process for analog devices, said Sabetti.

TI responded demurely when asked about pricing. Estimating that today's RFID tag--including antenna, chip and label--costs between 14 and 20 cents, Sabetti noted that the biggest cost element is not the chip, but the RFID-embedded label itself.

TI will offer its EPC Gen 2-compliant RFID chips in two forms: as finished inlays and in a silicon strap. The chip straps, each designed with two large contact tabs, are wound in a reel so that the chips can be attached to cardboard boxes, paper or any other label. The die size of the chip, with its 86-bit EPC memory, is 0.7 x 0.8 mm.

TI believes its strap product enables a wide variety of end-use applications. "Eventually, it leads to [the] lower-cost production of RFID labels," said Sabetti.