Impinj and Texas Instruments Announce RFID Cooperation Agreement

(I-Newswire) January 18, 2005 - Impinj, Inc., the fabless semiconductor company whose patented Self-Adaptive Silicon® technology enables its high-performance radio frequency identification (RFID) products, and Texas Instruments (TI) (NYSE: TXN), the world leader in digital signal processing, analog, and RFID technologies, today announced their agreement to cooperate in development of products that are compliant with the Class 1, Generation 2 (Gen 2) standard recently ratified by EPCglobal Inc.™ This cooperation will ensure interoperability among Gen 2 products offered by the two companies, while enabling both companies to improve time-to-market for their Gen 2 offerings.

The newest and most advanced of the EPCglobal RFID specifications for the UHF band centered around 900 MHz, EPC Gen 2 overcomes limitations of EPCglobal's older Class 0 and Class 1 specifications, providing enhanced features and improved performance such as robust operation in high-density reader environments, compliance with global spectrum regulations, superior tag throughput, field rewritability and enhanced security, privacy and robustness.

"TI's substantial inlay design and assembly capability coupled with their tremendous RFID market presence makes them an ideal partner as Impinj develops our Gen 2 product line," said Dr. William Colleran, president and CEO, Impinj, Inc. "Interoperability of Gen 2 products from multiple vendors is crucial for rapid adoption of RFID. Through our cooperation, Impinj and TI will ensure a supply of interoperable Gen 2 products from two complementary sources."

"Impinj and TI have collaborated throughout the evolution of EPCglobal's Gen 2 specification, and our cooperation has continued as we ensure interoperability of EPC Gen 2 products for introduction later this year. Impinj's UHF chip design capability will greatly augment TI's efforts to provide Gen 2 products quickly, so that customers can reap rewards from near-term RFID implementations," said Julie England, vice president of Texas Instruments and general manager of Texas Instruments RFid Systems.

About Impinj, Inc.

Impinj, Inc. is a fabless semiconductor company whose patented Self-Adaptive Silicon® technology enables its two synergistic business lines: high performance RFID products and cost-effective semiconductor intellectual property (SIP). Impinj's semiconductor chips power high performance, enhanced-functionality RFID systems that fulfill the global mandates promulgated by the consumer packaged goods and retailing industries. The company is a leading contributor to the emerging RFID standards for high volume supply-chain applications worldwide. Impinj's innovative SIP products, core to the company's RFID tags, are licensed to leading semiconductor companies worldwide, allowing them to cost-effectively integrate crucial nonvolatile memory (NVM) alongside analog and digital functionality on a single chip. Impinj's SIP products include the popular AEON™ memory, the world's first rewritable NVM technology compatible with logic CMOS manufacturing. For more information, visit www.impinj.com.

About Texas Instruments RFid Systems

Texas Instruments is the world's largest integrated manufacturer of radio frequency identification (RFID) transponders and reader systems. Capitalizing on its competencies in high-volume semiconductor manufacturing and microelectronics packaging, TI is a visionary leader and at the forefront of establishing new markets and international standards for RFID applications. For more information, contact TI-RFid Systems at 1-888-937-6536 (North America) or +1 972-575-4364 (International), or visit the Web site at www.ti-rfid.com.

Texas Instruments Incorporated provides innovative DSP and analog technologies to meet our customers' real world signal processing requirements. In addition to Semiconductor, the company's businesses include Sensors & Controls, and Educational & Productivity Solutions. TI is headquartered in Dallas, Texas and has manufacturing, design or sales operations in more than 25 countries. Texas Instruments is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TXN. More information is located on the World Wide Web at www.ti.com.

Editorial Contacts:
Jill West
Impinj, Inc.
206-834-1110
jill.west@impinj.com

Lynda Kaye (For Impinj)
Eastwick Communications
650-799-2888
lynda@eastwick.com

Bill Allen
Texas Instruments
214-567-2511
billallen@ti.com

Kim Novino (For TI)
Bridgeman Communications
617-742-7270
kim@bridgeman.com


SOURCE: Impinj

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