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Alien Technology
Type	Private, venture-funded
Founded	California 1994
Headquarters	Morgan Hill, California, United States
Products	UHF RFID devices
Employees	235
Website	www.alientechnology.com

Alien Technology is a manufacturer of RFID technology. The company is headquartered in Morgan Hill, California, with a RFID tag manufacturing facility in Fargo, North Dakota, the Alien RFID Solutions Center, in the Dayton, Ohio area, and sales offices in the US, Europe and Asia. It currently employs approximately 235 people. Alien produces (EPC) Class 1 and Class 1 Gen 2 RFID inlays, tags and readers designed for use in manufacturing lines, warehouses, distribution centers, and retail stores.

Due to potential applications in a wide variety of mass-produced electronic devices, the company received funding and technical support from a number of other manufacturers, such as DuPont Displays and Philips Components. The company's stock symbol will be RFID, pending its listing on the NASDAQ. The company has established relationships with Wal-Mart, the U.S. Department of Defense, The Gillette Company, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Unisys, VeriSign, Manhattan Associates, Microsoft, The Kennedy Group, Nashua Corporation, NCR Corporation, Zebra Technologies and Paxar.

[edit] History

Alien Technology was founded in 1994, but was conceived on the idea of making low-cost LCD screens. They changed their manufacturing focus to RFID products and services in 2000. From 1994 through 2000, Alien focused on continued development of Fluidic Self Assembly technology (FSA), invented at University of California, Berkeley by Prof. John S. Smith.

[edit] 2000

August — Began manufacturing of passive UHF RFID products, including tags and readers using FSA, in Morgan Hill, California.

[edit] 2001

October — Acquired all of the assets of Wave ID, a privately held company specializing in RFID technology development, via a corporate buy-out.

[edit] 2002

September — Stav Prodromou is named the Chief Executive Officer[1]

[edit] 2003

January — Alien won an order from The Gillette Company for 500 million RFID tags. [2]
February — North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan issued a statement that Alien Technology would build a manufacturing plant in Fargo, North Dakota which could employ over 1,000 people with an annual payroll exceeding $50 million [3].
July — Announcement made that the North Dakota State University Research and Technology Park would be the site for the planned expansion of its manufacturing operations in North Dakota.[4]

[edit] 2004

May — A temporary manufacturing facility, Area 53, in Fargo, North Dakota was opened to refine the company's manufacturing line.

[edit] 2005

January — Alien acquired Quatrotec LLC, a provider of integration services for baggage handling and screening systems used by the air transportation industry.
May — The first High Speed Strap Attach Machine (HiSAM), the center of the company's manufacturing line, was delivered to Area 53, the temporary Fargo Facility.
August — Ground breaking of the main manufacturing plant in Fargo took place 2.
November — The RFID Solutions Center in Dayton, Ohio opens.
December — A Second HiSAM is ordered.[5]

[edit] 2006

January — Ohio State University, Ohio University Center for Automatic Identification, Wilberforce University, Wright State University and the University of Cincinnati announced partnerships with the RFID Solutions Center in Dayton, Ohio.
April — The main manufacturing site in the North Dakota State University Research and Technology Park in Fargo, ND was opened.
June —June 2, Alien seeks declaratory judgment in federal district court in the District of North Dakota to disprove Intermec Patent Infringement.[6]June 15, Alien Technology Corp. gets EPCglobal Certification Mark for its new ultra high frequency (UHF) Generation 2 RFID integrated circuit. June 29. Intermec Sues Alien Over IP.[7]
August — Alien withdraws its Registration Statement for IPO, citing adverse market conditions for new IPOs was not ideal. 3 The following week, 50 of its 250 employees were laid off to reduce costs. A new HiSAM was delivered by Toray International to Fargo's Area 54 on the 30th.[8]
November — Venture Beat, an industry magazine, reported that Alien Technology was looking for US$50 million in venture capital to help subsidize the company since it withdrew its Registration Statement for IPO. At the time of the report, Alien had raised $15 million. It is also reported that alien had spent close to $53 million USD in 2005. Since its inception Alien Technology had spent over $243 million in financing. [9] Alien releases its own RFID Generation 2 chip design called "Higgs". [10]

[edit] 2007

With the additional financing required after withdrawing their IPO, Alien maintained the 3:1 reverse split on their stock and re-evaluated all shares to $0.32 (at the time of their IPO filing, their internal valuation was $12.10 per share). January 9, 2007 Alien Technology named George W. Everhart their new Chief Executive Officer. There is some speculation they may perhaps also be an acquisition target by a larger RFID player.

[edit] Facilities

There are three key facility locations for Alien Technology — Morgan Hill, California, Fargo, North Dakota, and Dayton, Ohio.

[edit] Morgan Hill

The Morgan Hill, California campus is split between two buildings. The first building houses the company's Head Office and internally it is referred to as "Area 51". The second building houses Advanced Research and Design, NanoBlock Development, and RFID Reader Development and Assembly. Internally it is referred to as "Area 52".

[edit] Fargo

The Fargo, North Dakota campus was originally split between two buildings as well. The first building was a temporary manufacturing facility opened in 2004, and was referred to as "Area 53". Due to the opening of the main manufacturing plant, the "Area 53" facility converted for continued development of the High Speed Strap Attach Machine (HiSAM) and storage of finished products. This facility was closed in January 2006.

The main manufacturing plant was located in the NDSU Research and Technology Park on the North Dakota State University campus. It was internally referred to as "Area 54" and housed the Tag Assembly Line, Tag and Label Testing, Quality Assurance, Nanoblock Assembly, Shipping and Receiving, and Fargo offices. NDSU made a partnership with the company to help NDSU’s Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) develop wireless remote RFID micro sensors for Military and Civilian use. The facility closed in June 2009.[11]

[edit] Dayton

The RFID Solutions Center in Dayton, Ohio consists of one building and referred to as "Area 55". It consists of a simulated warehouse, distribution center and storage environments, classrooms for University educational programs, and the Alien RFID Academy used to train end-users on how to effectively use RFID. A high-speed conveyor, a pallet stretch-wrapper, a forklift and other equipment have been outfitted with RFID readers for testing and training. Ohio State University, Ohio University Center for Automatic Identification, Wilberforce University, Wright State University and the University of Cincinnati have created partnerships with this site for research into RFID technologies, internships for students, and continuous faculty training.

[edit] Fluidic Self-Assembly and Screen Printing

In this process, specially shaped Nanoblock ICs flow through a liquid solution and are distributed across a flexible film. The surface of the film is shaped micro-embossed receptor holes into which the ICs settle. The shape of the ICs and the corresponding holes are such that the ICs fall into place and self-align, hence the term Fluidic Self-Assembly. After the Nanoblock ICs have been placed in the substrate web, straps are made using screen printing techniques to create large contact pads of conductive ink with electrical connection to the ICs. When a strap is coupled with an IC it usually resembles a very tiny metallic bow tie. The added strap also allows for easier handling of the very small ICs and the conductive surface area makes connecting the circuits easier and more reliable. Also see; [12] These methods vastly increases the amount of ICs that can be processed, increasing through-put and lowering cost.

More information on the FSA process and a video showing how the process works can be found on Alien Technology's website.

[edit] High Speed Strap Attach Machine

The High Speed Strap Attach Machine (HiSAM) is the name given to a specialized type of high volume RFID inlay production machine. The first machine was purchased at a cost of ~$1.2 million USD and delivered to Alien Technology in May 2005. HiSAM machines are also referred to as High Speed Rotary Bonders (HRB). This equipment is made in Japan and was invented and produced by the process automation engineering company Hallys Corporation. As of October 14, 2006, four HiSAMs have been ordered for delivery by Alien Technology.

These unique machines are used for handling, sorting, and bonding the IC straps with antennas to create finished Inlays. The machines are extremely fast and capable of processing and production in very high volume (~10 antenneas a second or ~600 inlays per min.) at very low cost.

[edit] Competitors

[edit] See also

Omni-ID

[edit] External links

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