PCB Tech - PCB board with RFID chip

Currently, many companies still view RFID as a technology that can be applied to finished products to improve supply chain tracking. For these companies, they believe that RFID will increase costs and are concerned about whether they can be retrieved by improving operational efficiency and inventory management. However, some companies have recognized that RFID is more than just a RF bar code - it can be embedded in a product at a small cost to track the entire lifecycle activity of the product.

Some electronics companies have partnered with RFID technology providers to develop RFID chips that can be placed or embedded in printed circuit boards (PCBs). This has several advantages over sticking RFID tags on product boxes such as mobile phones, DVD players, or Internet routers.

First, the box labels mean that products can only be tracked from the box to the checkout. If the label is in the PCB board, product tracking can be done from the beginning of manufacturing to the end of product recycling. Because many electronics processing plants are highly automated and components are automatically picked up by robots and added to PCB boards, tracking in-process may not be of great benefit. But when the product is put into stock, the company can monitor how long the product is stored in the warehouse to ensure that the correct product is removed and delivered to the correct customer.

Manufacturers can send Advance Freight Notification (ASN) to their retail partners to let retail stores know the goods to be delivered and their serial numbers. The retailer then takes the product to the warehouse, automatically checks the serial number based on ASN, identifies each item, and sees if it is lost in transit (theft is a major problem in the electronics supply chain). Telstra, an Australian telecommunications company, recently launched an RFID test that would save $3.2 million annually in human costs and product wear and tear if the system was formally applied at its 130 retail outlets.

Customers also benefit from this. For example, a mobile phone manufacturer can set up a user database so that when a mobile phone is lost, it can simply read the label ID code to find the user's address. Or the manufacturer can provide additional services, which can be handed over directly to the manufacturer when someone picks up the phone, and the manufacturer can return the phone to the user free of charge.

When the mobile phone is discarded, the label inside the PCB board of the mobile phone can also help recycle. In some countries where manufacturers recycle electronic products, RFID tags can be used to identify manufacturers and help garbage companies quickly understand which parts can be recycled and the harmful substances contained in mobile phones.

Another advantage of embedding tags in electronic products is that a 10-cent or 20-cent RFID chip price is really insignificant compared to a total price of $10, $20, $50 or more electronic product material lists. Bill Colleran, President of Impinj, said, "There is no need to change the manufacturing process. The RFID chip is just another component that the robot adds to the PCB board.

Impinj has been working with several electronics and microchip manufacturers to develop chips for PCB boards. Other RFID companies are doing the same thing. A week ago, in Germany, RFIDJournalLIVE! In Europe2009, Alexander Schmoldt, a commercial development engineer at MurataElektr ONikGmbH, said his company has developed a new RFID module Magicstrap, which consists of a cryogenic co-fired ceramic matrix and an embedded RFID chip. The module can be mounted on or embedded in a PCB board with a reading frequency of 800MHz-1,000 MHz and a reading distance of up to 5 meters. This means that labels on PCB boards can be used to track product flow in supply chains and retail stores.

At the Austrian NXP Application and Systems Center, Martin Schatzmayer, the director of the center, also demonstrated a prototype chip that can be embedded in a PCB board, using the ground layer of the PCB as the chip antenna. The product is not yet on the market, but Martin believes NXP can design chips that work on any PCB board.