One of the founders of Impinj, Chris Diorio: Borderless Internet of Things achieving trillion connections.

On November 19, 2020, Impinj held an online media communication meeting as scheduled, inviting many domestic media to participate. RFID World Network participated in this communication meeting as one of the invited media. The main speaker of this media communication meeting was Chris Diorio, CEO, Vice President, and Co-founder of Impinj, who provided a detailed explanation of the company's market strategy and market position, and accepted interviews from domestic media. Below are the contents of the speech and interview session:

Chris Diorio: Hello everyone, I am the CEO of Impinj. Today I am honored to talk to you about Impinj's strategy in China.

Impinj's vision is to connect trillions of everyday items, creating a digital life by linking all items to the cloud and expanding the coverage of the Internet of Things by 1000 times, connecting and digitizing all imaginable everyday items. Imagine how to fully utilize applications that take advantage of this connectivity. So far, we have tagged 40 billion items with digital labels.

We provide very small chips that can be seen as ultra-small radios, but they do not require power; they only need to be activated by the radio frequency waves from a reader. This tiny chip contains storable information that can be linked and stored in the cloud. Currently, most of the Internet of Things is about connecting devices to cloud databases, but in the future we will associate all items with cloud databases and be able to track daily items and perform digital collection functions using data from the chips.


Next, I will introduce Impinj's specific solutions.

The first is retail. So far, approximately 12 billion retail clothing items have RFID tags, but there is still about 68 billion pieces of development space in the clothing retail market. Items from Uniqlo, ZARA, Nike, HLA, H&M, and Decathlon have all been tagged with RFID. The applications of RFID in these retail industries are quite similar, bringing benefits to retailers such as increased sales, reduced inventory, improved efficiency in store and warehouse inventory work, and enhanced customer experience.

The second is aviation. Several major airlines in China have begun placing RFID tags on luggage, such as China Southern Airlines and China Eastern Airlines. Many airports have started using RFID applications for luggage tracking, such as Beijing Daxing International Airport and all Delta Airlines airports in the United States; Hong Kong International Airport began using it as early as 2008. Now, 299 airlines will fully deploy luggage tracking systems to help reduce lost luggage, improve airport efficiency, enhance customer satisfaction, and virtualize operational improvements.

The third is supply chain. We have connected millions of pallets, but there are still billions of potentials in the supply chain market. Next, we will cover every logistics customer and every package to help reduce inventory, improve warehouse inventory efficiency while reducing package loss and enhancing customer experience. China Post, Haier, JPR (a pallet management company from Japan), etc., have begun to use RFID extensively in warehouse logistics.

Our goal is to tag trillions of items. By 2019, there were 18.5 billion tagged items connected through Impinj in the market. The annual growth rate of this market is 30%. In addition to clothing and logistics, large markets including aviation, food, and automotive parts will also lay out RFID in the future. Considering that trillions of items have not yet used RFID, currently only 0.2% of items have started using RFID; thus the market potential is enormous. For example, the market potential for tires is 3 billion; for aviation luggage it is 4 billion; for clothing it is 80 billion; for mail items it is 300 billion; for automotive parts it is 600 billion; and for food or beverages it reaches trillions.

Our vision is a borderless Internet of Things that connects our everyday items and creates a digital life. By tagging each everyday item with an ID-like label, we can verify its authenticity and locate the factory that produced it. Factories have their own databases storing detailed information about each item produced including production dates and individual links for each item. We hope to wirelessly link items with their information. From factory to logistics warehouse to store and finally to consumer use, we can track everything throughout the process and obtain all information.

The technology we use now is called RAIN (Radio Identification), which is a type of radio frequency identification technology (RFID). RAIN actually encompasses many different technologies; what you may be familiar with is NFC used for payments on mobile phones which is also a type of RFID technology—like Shanghai transportation cards that use high-frequency technology. The technology we provide is RAIN which operates at ultra-high frequency (UHF), here we give ultra-high frequency a new name: RAIN.

NFC is a type of high-frequency technology while RAIN is ultra-high frequency technology. The difference between RAIN RFID technology and NFC technology is that RAIN RFID chips provide unique identification codes but their chips are different from NFC chips. First of all, their cost is very low. Secondly, their reading rate is fast; they can scan up to 1000 items per second with a long reading distance up to 10 meters while NFC requires contact suitable for short-distance reading. Therefore using RAIN RFID allows you to quickly conduct warehouse inventory without opening boxes while counting up to 1000 items at once. Finally, it does not require batteries; each RAIN tag can be used indefinitely. Additionally, protocols related to RAIN technology are open and cover a global range allowing usage in any country.

Therefore we believe RAIN is a core technology in the Internet of Things focusing on item management. We also have other complementary IoT technologies such as beacons that connect two devices together; we are familiar with the internet including payments; and using cameras for person recognition. The RAIN technology mainly focuses on item identification while other technologies target people or payments so we consider RAIN as the core technology regarding item identification in IoT.

Our company offers three types of products. First are sand-sized tag chips which are inexpensive chips that can be placed on luggage tags. Additionally, we collaborate with many Chinese manufacturers to develop and produce readers so customers can use these devices to read information. Furthermore, we also provide reader chips allowing reader manufacturers to read/write chips developing various handheld reader devices while reducing costs.

For example, we collaborate with Chinese label manufacturers by making our chips into luggage tags provided to Delta Airlines in the United States while placing our readers under airport conveyor belts to collect information read from each piece of luggage on the conveyor belt. Moreover, our software integration partners will develop software applications helping Delta Airlines passengers track their luggage status on their mobile phones at any time.

Yue Savage (Head of Chip Business for Impinj Asia Pacific): Let me introduce our customers in China.

As early as 2014, we collaborated with China's largest men's clothing brand, Hailan Home, which was the first large-scale clothing retail brand in China to use RAIN RFID. After implementing RAIN RFID, their warehouses achieved a 100% accuracy rate. Although the daily volume of goods entering the warehouse reached millions, the rapid entry process expanded their warehouse capacity fivefold compared to before. At the same time, Hailan Home utilized RFID for sorting and scanning automation tasks, increasing labor efficiency tenfold. Now, each piece of clothing takes only 30 seconds from storage, picking, sorting, to preparation for shipment. Therefore, Hailan Home is a pioneer in the use of RAIN RFID in China's retail industry. In this project with Hailan Home, our Chinese partners include Xiamen Xinda IoT and Shenzhen Xiaobang. As core technology suppliers, we work with our Chinese partners to provide applications for major retail clients in China. The next case is from SAIC Anji Logistics Company. SAIC Anji Logistics provides logistics services for Shanghai Automotive and has a large outdoor warehouse. However, due to the difficulty of vehicle inventory in outdoor warehouses, they utilized RAIN RFID technology by placing RAIN RFID tags on the front of each vehicle. They also developed a RAIN RFID reader module based on our reader chip and placed it on DJI drones for outdoor inventory checks. As a result, the inventory time was reduced to half a day or even shorter. Additionally, data collected during drone flights can be transmitted to the cloud in real-time, allowing for 100% accurate inventory assessment. The manual labor required to track VIN numbers was also reduced by 50%. This case was also realized through our Chinese partners, Beijing Xinlian Chuangzhan and Anji's integrators.

Next is China's Haier Group. Haier Group has also applied RAIN RFID technology in warehouse logistics, achieving a 100% accuracy rate in warehouse deliveries. This significantly reduced labor in Haier's warehouse logistics while utilizing paperless processes to alleviate environmental pressure. By leveraging information technology and wireless applications, their warehouse operations have improved and errors caused by manual scanning have been reduced. This was also achieved through one of our Chinese partners, Wuxi Xiaoyi IoT, which helped Haier develop a complete solution.

The last example is Hong Kong International Airport, which started using RAIN RFID back in 2008. Hong Kong Airport is one of the busiest airports in the world and the first large airport in Asia to adopt RAIN RFID. The airport handles approximately 75 million passengers annually; whether departing from or transiting through Hong Kong Airport, every piece of luggage passing through carries a RAIN RFID tag. We collaborated with clients in China who produce airline baggage tags by embedding Impinj's tag chips into the baggage tags before providing them to Hong Kong Airport.

Media Q&A session

Question: What industries does Impinj focus on in China, and what are the next development priorities?

Chris Diorio: Retail and supply chain logistics are our main focus areas; besides that, we are also looking at other industries including tires and aviation.

Our focus is on achieving digital transformation for all everyday items. Now our users can understand inventory and asset shipping status in the cloud while we provide them with accurate data including item traceability and location information. These are all important pieces of information that we believe are crucial for our customers.

Additionally, we aim to automate product lines, management, and inventory replenishment to minimize physical contact with items. Customers want to know what stock needs replenishing in their warehouses; automation can help provide the required products more quickly.

Finally, there’s the case of SAIC Anji Logistics using drones for inventory checks. This provides end-users with virtualized management that completely changes previous workflows and offers new ways for end-users to view their workflows alongside the current state of warehouse systems.

Question: What efforts has Impinj made in promoting RFID technology? What contributions has RFID made to advancing IoT applications? What is the current state of RFID applications?

Chris Diorio: Impinj's vision is to advance IoT innovation by proposing solutions related to IoT that connect trillions of everyday items to the cloud via wireless IoT technology. Today, our platform has linked over 40 billion everyday items and supports IoT solutions. Over the past decade, RAIN RFID has been evolving; we are now approaching a tipping point where growth is faster than ever before.

In promoting RAIN RFID, we launched the RAIN RFID Alliance. I am a board member of this alliance. The RAIN RFID Alliance now has over 160 companies as members; its main purpose is to promote the application of RAIN RFID across global markets. Through this alliance, we can provide customers with content and training so that more partners and users can quickly understand the functions and value of RAIN RFID.

Question: In your view, under this new normal post-pandemic this year, will customer demands change? If so, how?

Chris Diorio: All our end-users now, especially in retail—whether online or offline—are accelerating digitization so that every item corresponds to a digital identity. Especially during the pandemic, many retailers accelerated their online sales and services both in Asia and Europe. Online services put more pressure on retailers as they need accurate inventory information and more efficient channel management; related product digital information must be more precise and robust. Consumers are also demanding faster tracking of items and expect manufacturers to improve online operational efficiency. Therefore, we believe that the pandemic has actually accelerated our end-users' digital transformation.

Question: How has Impinj kept pace with developments in RFID technology and integrated into smart IoT AIoT innovations?

Chris Diorio: AI systems require data to become intelligent; more data means greater intelligence. The value and quality of data input are crucial for AI systems. RAIN RFID provides unique identification services for items, making it easier to collect large amounts of data. The RAIN RFID system provides data that allows all operators to view various items within the system and understand how different systems operate to improve their areas. RAIN RFID can operate without line-of-sight connections; thus it can provide visibility into product locations that were previously unattainable. With this data available, AI systems can deliver the value and quality needed for true business intelligence by applying improvements across various systems using related data such as item movement.

Question: In which technological fields will breakthroughs occur after RFID?

Chris Diorio: Our company currently provides very small chips that need to be synthesized into tags on aluminum antennas; users activate them with readers to read information stored within these chips. After several processing steps, these tags can become luggage tags or clothing hangtags or stickers placed on boxes. In the future, chips could be directly embedded into items without needing external tags anymore. Chips will not only provide unique tagging but can also be used for more applications such as anti-counterfeiting, brand protection as well as positioning and authentication; thus we will increase our research and development efforts in these areas.

Question: What efforts has Impinj made regarding security and privacy to protect user information and gain customer trust?

Chris Diorio: Currently, RFID is tag recognition, and any reader can read it. We are also increasing our R&D in this area because data security and consumer privacy are very important global demands today. For example, in our latest launched tag chip, we have added a new feature called protection mode. After the product is sold, retailers can activate the chip's protection mode, eliminating consumers' concerns about the information in the chip being read by others. Once the chip is in protection mode, the tag cannot be read by anyone. If consumers return the item to the manufacturer, the manufacturer can reactivate the tag chip on the item using a password to turn off protection mode. Once protection mode is turned off, the tag will return to warehouse logistics, and its information can be read again.

Regarding digital security, RAIN RFID tags are just a unique code and do not contain any substantial information; they connect wirelessly to the cloud, where information about the item is stored in a cloud database. Therefore, RAIN RFID does not actually affect security because its code and data are securely protected in our cloud database.

Question: With the development of 5G and IoT, what new trends and breakthroughs do you think there are in the development of identification technology? What challenges are faced in the market?

Chris Diorio: RAIN technology focuses on item identification, and its item information is actually stored in the cloud; it relies more on network speed. Therefore, 5G can accelerate the connection between items and cloud databases, facilitate the digital transformation of items, and promote the future development of RAIN RFID technology.

The current challenge is to improve speed. We digitize 20 billion items each year, but our goal is to reach 200 billion or even trillions. Currently, we have achieved a 30% annual growth rate. We need to challenge ourselves to use this technology to accelerate the digital transformation of items.

Question: What plans does Impinj have for integrating future technologies such as biometrics?

Chris Diorio: RAIN RFID mainly targets item digital identification, while biometrics primarily targets human identification; these two technologies are complementary. In future internet technology, we will focus on using RAIN RFID to develop technologies related to item identification.

Question: Regarding current demand for RAIN RFID technology, what improvements are needed for RAIN readers compared to before? Has Impinj launched related products?

Chris Diorio: I believe future readers will become smaller and cheaper. This way, we can place readers in various scenarios such as on shelves, in cars, or even on rooftops and inside light fixtures or walls; the goal is to make readers ubiquitous. In the future, there will be more readers linking with billions of everyday products while transmitting data to the cloud. I think this is the future direction for reader development.

We recently launched two new products. One is the M700 series tag chip, which is the most sensitive, best-performing, and smallest chip on the market. The other is the R700 reader, which has improved performance across all aspects; the processor speed inside the R700 is ten times that of the previous generation reader. These two new products will soon be promoted in China.

Question: It is said that R3000 is currently undergoing some tests; can Chris Diorio reveal any progress? What aspects of R3000 are most anticipated?

Chris Diorio: Our current reader chip is R2000, and we are also developing the next generation product; however, we have not publicly released news about the latest reader chip yet. But we will enhance the performance of the next generation chip based on current issues with R2000. The next generation reader chip will feature low power consumption characteristics and will be easier to integrate with current devices in embedded development. Since future readers will be ubiquitous, we need to give them low power consumption and easy embedding features to accelerate their application.

Question: In order to adapt to the trend of cloud-edge integration, what aspects does RFID technology need to upgrade?

Chris Diorio: If billions of products are tagged in the future, each billion-level product will connect through readers via our network to cloud databases. If readers continuously collect data, there will be a large amount of data that needs to be transmitted. In this situation, edge computing methods applied to reader devices require intelligent readers to process this large amount of data. This would avoid transmitting redundant data to the cloud. Using edge computing methods allows for data processing while only transmitting valuable data to the cloud, thus reducing bandwidth for data transmission while applying data more efficiently. For example, for food tracking in cold chains, we would only send relevant data to the cloud when temperature changes occur around food items. Or we would only collect data when store product locations change. Therefore, intelligent edge computing needs to be implemented with these functions reflected on readers.

Question: Will chip shortages during the pandemic become prominent? When will this situation improve? How has the pandemic affected Impinj's performance?

Chris Diorio: After the pandemic occurred, our chip foundries and subsequent processing plants are located in China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. These factories were not significantly affected by the pandemic; therefore, we currently do not have a chip shortage issue.

The pandemic has had a short-term impact on us because people are not going out shopping or traveling for business or leisure; thus demand for chips has been somewhat affected in the short term. However, in the long run, the pandemic will accelerate end-users' digital transformation and improve work efficiency across sectors including aviation, warehousing, logistics, and retail.

Question: What is Impinj's current progress and deployment situation in the Chinese market?

Chris Diorio: Impinj has been in the Chinese market for ten years now; China has become Impinj's largest market so we pay great attention to it. We have many different partners in China including label manufacturers, equipment providers as well as research and application integrators. At the same time, we continuously explore opportunities in China’s market while providing strong support for our partners there to promote IoT and RAIN RFID applications.

Question: How does Impinj build its ecosystem in China? How many partners does it currently have in China? What plans does it have to attract more partners into its ecosystem?

Chris Diorio: Among Impinj's global partners numbering around 250, many come from China; Chinese partners combine our technology with their products and push them to end-users effectively promoting our products. After the pandemic ends, we plan to visit China more frequently for face-to-face communication with partners as we work together to explore opportunities in this market.

Question: Will Impinj expand further into smart home areas?

Chris Diorio: Impinj believes that RAIN RFID is a very important core technology area for smart homes; Haier continues developing smart home functionalities for appliances. Although some smart refrigerators already incorporate RAIN RFID technology now there are still relatively few smart appliances utilizing it; we believe that smart homes and smart appliances will represent a significant market for RAIN RFID in the near future.