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In 2006, Hitachi developed a 0.15mm-sized RFID chip

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31–40 of 75 posts

Re: In 2006, Hitachi developed a 0.15mm-sized RFID chip

#31
post #30
post #2

The most amazing thing about this (and another tiny RFID chip that was on HN recently) is not that you can print them on wafers, but that you can cut up the wafers and handle these tiny dies. Imagine you manufactured sugar, but had to manipulate each sugar grain separately.

I have always wondered how this works (along with wire bonding), especially in an economic way. Chips being cheap makes sense at the lithography / wafer level because sure, you can stamp out thousands of them at once. But once you need to dice them up, bond wires to them, and package them... how on earth do you do that so efficiently that each chip can be sold for fractions of a cent?

If you can shine lasers at them to etch out a chip trace, then you can shine lasers to carve up the chip. Just use stronger lasers.

Re: In 2006, Hitachi developed a 0.15mm-sized RFID chip

#32
post #5

Still needs an antenna tuned to the RFID frequency which will be much larger than the chip. It's cool engineering but doesn't mean you can have a working sub-mm tag.

The chip is still the majority of the cost of the inlay, so making a smaller chip is the key to driving total down and unlocking new use cases.

Re: In 2006, Hitachi developed a 0.15mm-sized RFID chip

#33
post #7

honestly given how long ago that was I'd not be surprised if everything's completely peppered with chips... one from the manufacturer, one from inventory, one from logistic, one from corporate espionage agent, one from foreign adversary state actor sky really is the limit with these. didn't parmesan put some chips in their cheese too?

The ICs are tiny but the antenna are much larger.

Re: In 2006, Hitachi developed a 0.15mm-sized RFID chip

#34
post #13

In an early example of conspiracy theories that would eventually envelop social media, I actually remember internet commenters pointing to the previous generation of these as supposed "proof" that the government was embedding RFID chips in banknotes to track people (following a blog article by Alex Jones): https://news.slashdot.org/story/04/03/02/0535225/do-your-20-...

What never cease to amaze me with conspiracy theorists, is that they keep inventing preposterous “conspiracies” while being totally oblivious about the real world. Like why bother putting chips in banknotes when the government could track everyone in real time through their smartphone.

Sure, but in this case the /. comment was from 2004.

Re: In 2006, Hitachi developed a 0.15mm-sized RFID chip

#35
post #13

In an early example of conspiracy theories that would eventually envelop social media, I actually remember internet commenters pointing to the previous generation of these as supposed "proof" that the government was embedding RFID chips in banknotes to track people (following a blog article by Alex Jones): https://news.slashdot.org/story/04/03/02/0535225/do-your-20-...

If I worked for VISA's marketing team I'd want to spread FUD like this and "XX% of dollar bills have cocaine on them; protect your children with a youth MasterCard!"

For those not familiar with using powered drugs nasally, a credit or debit card is also usually a part of the drug taking toolkit. Its one of those odd occasions when you need both cash and credit.

Re: In 2006, Hitachi developed a 0.15mm-sized RFID chip

#36
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I worked for VISA's marketing team I'd want to spread FUD like this and "XX% of dollar bills have cocaine on them; protect your children with a youth MasterCard!"

For those not familiar with using powered drugs nasally, a credit or debit card is also usually a part of the drug taking toolkit. Its one of those odd occasions when you need both cash and credit.

You usually keep the credit card though and not hand it to someone for a drink 5 minutes later. Using banknotes is not advisable anyway. If you need to do this shit be smart about it.

Re: In 2006, Hitachi developed a 0.15mm-sized RFID chip

#37
post #16
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Used to develop readers based on similar UHF chips (868 MHz in EU). They were quite expensive compared to printed bar codes those were replacing. Also large. With (folded) antennas we are still talking about 40*10 mm minimum for the label. You can not use them on metal surfaces. Readers nearby will interfere as it works by EM wave backscattering, unlike NFC which is essentially a transformer (with electric field inte…

I have a hobby project where I am using UHF tags for counting poultry. The advantage that it gives me is long range (few meters) compared to LF / HF tags. QR code also wouldn't work due to size and distance. Here's a video. https://youtu.be/_iGn_pZ3IkY

Really nifty; can I ask what tags you are using? (are they off-the-shelf)

Would be interested in doing something similar

Re: In 2006, Hitachi developed a 0.15mm-sized RFID chip

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds crazy but car and truck tires have had RFID chips for years. I assume most people would be surprised by that. https://www.tirereview.com/michelin-connect-car-tires-rfid-2...

Stealing people's tires is a common thing. So add an RFID reader to cars with ALPR gear, and they can see if any tires they come across have also been reported stolen. See, it's nothing but wins for the consumer!

Ah yes and then you can sell tire usage subscriptions: model XYZ can only be driven with an active monthly subscription

Re: In 2006, Hitachi developed a 0.15mm-sized RFID chip

#39
post #30
post #2

The most amazing thing about this (and another tiny RFID chip that was on HN recently) is not that you can print them on wafers, but that you can cut up the wafers and handle these tiny dies. Imagine you manufactured sugar, but had to manipulate each sugar grain separately.

I have always wondered how this works (along with wire bonding), especially in an economic way. Chips being cheap makes sense at the lithography / wafer level because sure, you can stamp out thousands of them at once. But once you need to dice them up, bond wires to them, and package them... how on earth do you do that so efficiently that each chip can be sold for fractions of a cent?

Lots of automation. Dicing is automatic, bonding, testing are automatic. The manual work is mostly just transporting materials.

The bonding machines are crazy. Definitely look it up on YouTube, the machine puts down bond wires super fast.

The other part of it is sheer scale. Once you start making thousands or millions of something, economies of scale drive the costs way down

Re: In 2006, Hitachi developed a 0.15mm-sized RFID chip

#40
post #2

The most amazing thing about this (and another tiny RFID chip that was on HN recently) is not that you can print them on wafers, but that you can cut up the wafers and handle these tiny dies. Imagine you manufactured sugar, but had to manipulate each sugar grain separately.

You significantly underestimate the size of sugar crystals ^^
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