RFID Chip

RFID stands for Radio-Frequency IDentification.
RFID technology has been available for more than fifty years.
One reason that it has taken so long for RFID to come into common use is the lack of standards in the industry.

The RFID device serves the same purpose as a bar code or a magnetic strip on the back of a credit card or ATM card; it provides a unique identifier for that object. And, just as a bar code or magnetic strip must be scanned to get the information, the RFID device must be scanned to retrieve the identifying information.
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is the wireless use of electromagnetic fields to transfer data, for the purposes of automatically identifying and tracking tags attached to objects.
 RFID is one method for Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC).
In 2014, the world RFID market is worth $8.89 billion, up from $7.77 billion in 2013 and $6.96 billion in 2012. This includes tags, readers, and software/services for RFID cards, labels, fobs, and all other form factors. The market value is expected to rise to $27.31 billion by 2024.

Government control 

Some individuals have grown to fear the loss of rights due to RFID human implantation.

By early 2007, Chris Paget of San Francisco, California, showed that RFID information can be pulled from individuals by using only $250 worth of equipment. This supports the claim that with the information captured, it would be relatively simple to make counterfeit passports. 

According to ZDNet, critics believe that RFID will lead to tracking individuals' every movement and will be an invasion of privacy.  In the book SpyChips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move by Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre, one is encouraged to "imagine a world of no privacy. Where your every purchase is monitored and recorded in a database and your every belonging is numbered. Where someone many states away or perhaps in another country has a record of everything you have ever bought. What's more, they can be tracked and monitored remotely"

Common Problems with RFID

Some common problems with RFID are reader collision and tag collision. Reader collision occurs when the signals from two or more readers overlap. The tag is unable to respond to simultaneous queries. Systems must be carefully set up to avoid this problem. Tag collision occurs when many tags are present in a small area; but since the read time is very fast, it is easier for vendors to develop systems that ensure that tags respond one at a time. See Problems with RFID for more details.

Frequencies[edit]

RFID frequency bands  

Band	Regulations	Range	Data speed	ISO/IEC 18000Section	Remarks	Approximate tag cost in volume (2006) US $
120–150 kHz (LF)	Unregulated	10 cm	Low	Part 2	Animal identification, factory data collection	$1
13.56 MHz (HF)	ISM bandworldwide	10 cm - 1 m	Low to moderate	Part 3	Smart cards (ISO/IEC 15693, ISO/IEC 14443 A,B). Non fully ISO compatible memory cards (Mifare Classic, iCLASS, Legic, Felica ...). Micro processor ISO compatible cards (Desfire EV1, Seos)	$0.50 to $5
433 MHz (UHF)	Short Range Devices	1–100 m	Moderate	Part 7	Defense applications, with active tags	$5
865-868 MHz (Europe) 902-928 MHz (North America) UHF	ISM band	1–12 m	Moderate to high	Part 6	EAN, various standards	$0.15 (passive tags)
2450-5800 MHz (microwave)	ISM band	1–2 m	High	Part 4	802.11 WLAN, Bluetooth standards	$25 (active tags)
3.1–10 GHz (microwave)	Ultra wide band	to 200 m	High	Not Defined	requires semi-active or active tags	$5 projected

Problems and concerns 

Data flooding 

Not every successful reading of a tag (an observation) is useful for business purposes. A large amount of data may be generated that is not useful for managing inventory or other applications. For example, a customer moving a product from one shelf to another, or a pallet load of articles that passes several readers while being moved in a warehouse, are events that do not produce data that is meaningful to an inventory control system. 

Event filtering is required to reduce this data inflow to a meaningful depiction of moving goods passing a threshold. Various concepts  have been designed, mainly offered as middleware performing the filtering from noisy and redundant raw data to significant processed data.

Global standardization 

The frequencies used for UHF RFID in the USA are currently incompatible with those of Europe or Japan. Furthermore, no emerging standard has yet become as universal as the barcode.  To address international trade concerns, it is necessary to use a tag that is operational within all of the international frequency domains.