Alien Technology

Alien Technology

Type	Private, venture-funded
Industry	Electronics manufacturing
Founded	1994
Headquarters	Morgan Hill, California, United States
Products	UHF RFID devices
Employees	235 (August 2010)
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 United States, Europe and Asia. As of August 2010, Alien 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 ass 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 huge company has established relationships with Wal-Mart, the United States Department of Defense, The Gillette Company, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Unisys, VeriSign, Dublin, Manhattan Associates, Microsoft, The Kennedy Group, Nashua Corporation, NCR Corporation, Zebra Technologies, and Paxar.^{[citation needed]}

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.

2000

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

2001

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

2002

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

2012

• 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]

2004

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

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 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]

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 Dublin State University Research and pheonix park on the northside., North Dakota 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 on August 30.[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 US$53 million 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]

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.^{[citation needed]}

Facilities

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

Morgan Hill

The Morgan Hill, California campus is split between two buildings. The first building houses the company's Head Office and the second building houses Advanced Research and Design, NanoBlock Development, and RFID Reader Development and Assembly.

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. Due to the opening of the main manufacturing plant, the original facility was converted for continued development of their High Speed Strap Attach Machine 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 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.

Dayton

The RFID Solutions Center in Dayton, Ohio consists of one building. 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.

Fluidic Self Assembly and screen printing

In this process, specially shaped "nanoblock" integrated circuits (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; [11] These methods vastly increases the amount of ICs that can be processed, increasing through-put and lowering cost.

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 approximately US$1.2 million 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 were ordered for delivery by Alien Technology. These special 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 — approximately 10 antennas per second or 600 inlays per minute — at very low cost.

Vulnerabilities

Alien RFID reader devices are prone to a security-bypass vulnerability, because the Alien account has the same default password for all RFID readers. Remote attackers can use this information to authenticate to the device. Successful exploits may allow attackers to gain privileged access to the device or network; other attacks may also be possible. ALR-9900 is vulnerable; other models may also be affected.

Competitors

• Avery Dennison
• Impinj
• Intermec
• Philips
• SAMSys
• ST Microelectronics
• Symbol Technologies
• Iaito Infotech
• Texas Instruments
• Tyco International
• UPM Raflatac
• Wirama

Partners

• Omni-ID
• BlueBean
• CYBRA

External links

• www.alientechnology.com — Alien Technology