On Tuesday, Inforum, a Fargo, ND based news website reported that Alien Technology is considering closing its plant there (read the story here). Alien opened the facility in March 2004 as an advanced manufacturing plant outfitted with equipment using a patented Fluidic Self-Assembly (FSA) process capable of producing billions of RFID tag strap attachments.
After receiving numerous inquiries regarding the validity of the article, IndustryWizards.com founder, Louis Sirico called Victor Vega, Alien Technology’s Marketing Director, to get the official word. Vega issued this official statement to the community:
“As we all know, the tumultuous economic conditions have had their fair impact on the RFID industry. This has been somewhat reflected in demand volatility. Alien Technology’s patented and proprietary FSA / Strap assembly process is an exceptional high volume production solution in a consistent market, but in this period of inconsistency and lower market volumes, alternative techniques needed to be considered. Alien continues to closely manage its business during the continued economic turmoil, and after careful review, we have decided to implement some changes to our production process.
The undergoing changes are transparent to our end customers and the migration is moving along seamlessly. The fundamental difference is a simple change in the chip attachment from our traditional strap-based attachment process to that of a flip-chip attachment process for our inlay assembly. An analogy might be much like choosing between using English or Metric bolts to attach an engine to a vehicle frame – in this case, the IC is “connected” to the antenna with a choice of either a strap or a flip chip. Alien inlays continue to be powered by our industry leading Higgs™3 IC’s and continue to provide the same unmatched leading performance and quality. Converter partners are in process of sampling our Squiggle® inlays today.”
Alien is partnered with a number of RFID tag providers that offer labels and durable tags built on Alien RFID inlays and integrated circuits. IndustryWizards.com will have further updates as they are made available.
On Tuesday, Inforum, a Fargo, ND based news website reported that Alien Technology is considering closing its plant there (read the story 