Making a Bet on Major Change Throughout its history, Intel has repeatedlybacked its assessment of new technologieswith broad and strategic investments inthose that promised fundamental break-throughs for consumers, business, and gov-ernment. That pattern is being repeatedtoday as the company is putting its consid-erable muscle behind RFID, a technologywith the potential to transform the way busi-ness assets are identified and tracked.

Intel firmly believes that RFID is atransformational technology that willenable significant improvements inbusiness processes and economic perform-ance across many different vertical indus-tries and the public sector. Realizing thesegains, however, will place increasingdemands on the enterprise compute andcommunications infrastructure that is Intel’score business. To prepare, the company ismaking long-term investments in the basictechnologies and supporting infrastructurethat will make large-scale adoption of busi-ness solutions based on RFID a financiallyand operationally sound decision.

The company is supporting broad-basedindustry efforts to formalize RFID data stan-dards, designing building blocks for newdata acquisition platforms, testing distrib-uted architectures for real-time data man-agement, coordinating industry-specificsolution development, and investigatinglong-term opportunities through basicresearch. In fact, Intel is actively participatingin nearly every aspect of RFID technologydevelopment except the manufacture of sil-icon for RF tags and labels themselves.

It All Starts With StandardsOpen industry standards are the first prereq-uisite for reliable interoperation, broad

adoption, rapid innovation, and viable eco-nomics. Intel has been a long-time support-er and active participant providing financialsponsorship and technical expertise to theAuto-ID Center, a unique partnershipbetween industry and academia that isdeveloping open, universal standards forproduct identification and data exchange.We are members of EPCglobal and fully sup-port the Center’s Electronic Product Code(EPC) standard for RFID data, its markup lan-guage for product description, and its soft-ware technology for data management.These essential standards provide the neces-sary technical consensus for rapid develop-ment of economically viable businesssolutions.

Infrastructure Building Blocksfor RFID SolutionsAcquiring, filtering, aggregating, anddistributing RFID data will require scalable,distributed hardware infrastructures withseveral distinct system tiers, each with itsown unique workloads and processingrequirements.

Intel is leveraging its ongoing invest-ments in processor design and new produc-tion processes with targeted developmentsin RFID-specific platforms to provide a com-plete range of high performance technologybuilding blocks, with clearly defined roadmaps for continuous value and perform-ance progress. The core components of thisstrategy include:• A road map to more capable, less expen-

sive RFID readers – Intel® XScale® technol-ogy-based processors provide compact,high performance processing power formany RFID reader systems. They providethe ideal computing and communicationsplatform as well as performance headroomto help these systems manage the growing

data loads as case- and pallet-level taggingleads to item-level tracking.

• A scalable distributed server infrastructure– The gradual transition to real-time oper-ations based on end-to-end asset visibilitywill impose steadily increasing workloadson the data management infrastructure,and will require several new service tiersthat will provide:° Intelligent data flow and event man-

agement, identify exceptions, andmake RFID data immediately availablefor business services and global syn-chronization;

° Translation and integration services toprepare data for movement to internaland external data pools, and for syn-chronization with business partners;

° Rapid decision making by exposingRFID data to the enterprise. Thisbecomes the distributed orchestrationlayer that links internal data flows tothe external environment; and

° Network and storage capacitydesigned for performance, reliabili-ty, and affordable scalability.

Intel architecture-based server platformsprovide a broad array of choice for everystage of the RFID solution architecture.Businesses can take advantage of blade andedge servers powered by the Intel Xeon™processor, application servers based on themultiprocessor Intel Xeon processor MP, andmassive database servers powered by Intel®

Itanium® 2 processors. All offer openstandards-based support for a wide range of software solutions and services, with aprice performance curve that far surpassesRISC architectures.

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Investing in a More Visible Future

Intel, the world’s largest chip manufacturer, is working with leading consulting, integra-tion, software, and hardware companies todevelop powerful, integrated RFID-EPCsolutions for the retail and CPG industriesusing hardware and software based onrobust, open standards-based architectures.

SOLUTION PROVIDER

Intel is committing money and manpower to build real businesssolutions based on RFID.

Powerful, versatile, and mobile clientsystems – RFID data only becomes valuablewhen rendered into actionable intelligencein the hands of a concerned decision maker.Notebook and tablet PCs powered by IntelCentrino™ mobile technology, desktop PCsbased on the Intel® Pentium® 4 processor,and wireless handheld devices based on IntelXScale technology put data, processingpower, and communications wherever theyare needed to drive faster, accurate, fullyinformed decisions.

Architecture and SolutionDevelopment ServicesAs software and standards for RFID deploy-ment mature, Intel is emerging as a leaderin architecting RFID solutions and pilotsworldwide. One of Intel’s strongest reposi-tories of RFID skills and knowledge is itsprofessional services division, Intel SolutionServices. Intel Solution Services has deliv-ered high-profile RFID projects worldwide,including a vital role in the architecturaldesign, project management, and execu-tion of the successful “METRO Future StoreInitiative” in Europe.

Emphasizing the depth of Intel’s RFID-related services capability, IDC rated Intel asone of the top four services providers forRFID solutions in the retail vertical. This sig-nifies Intel’s dedication to helping companiesand Intel’s “Fellow Travelers” capitalize onthe benefits of RFID.

Intel Solution Services offers a multi-tude of RFID-related services to helpcompanies minimize their up-front invest-ment in RFID business justification andsolution evaluation. Three primary areas ofRFID support available from Intel SolutionServices:• Business value assessment – Intel’s

specialists can evaluate and architect anRFID deployment scenario based on acustomer’s needs. Our primary intent isto empower the customer with the abil-ity to plan for a low-cost, functionallyproven and scalable solution.

• Project and partner management –An essential element of successful RFID solution planning is the manage-

ment of multiple vendors and serviceproviders. Our relationships with an extensive network of RFIDtechnology providers and ability tomap RFID technologies to acustomer’s requirements can sig-nificantly reduce delivery time andproject costs, and ensure the mostappropriate suite of technologies

are used.• Technical solution development –

As with any new technology invest-ment, RFID solutions require a compre-hensive testing and evaluation phase.Intel Solution Services offers an end-to-end solution development and testingcapability. By utilizing our state-of-the-art test facilities, established testingmethodologies, and market-leadingtechnical engineering and consultingresources, companies engaging with Intelcan keep their project timeframe to a minimum and help ensure optimalfinancial and project planning for theirRFID initiatives.

While these offerings are targeted directlyat end customers, Intel Solution Services’model is not intended to be competitivewith other service providers in this arena.Intel’s established “Fellow Traveler” collab-orative model is enhanced through IntelSolution Services’ ability to engage in RFIDsolution and pilot development with endcustomers and system integrators alike. AnIntel Solution Services resource as part of alarger project team is an ideal way to keepa sanity check on project costs.

Driving Industry-Specific“One Generation Ahead”Solutions Like all new technologies, RFID is finding dif-ferent applications in different industry set-tings. To help identify the strategic pointswhere this and other technologies, correctlyimplemented, can most effectively and sig-nificantly improve existing business process-es, Intel’s Solution Market DevelopmentGroup (SMDG) has recruited and deployeddedicated liaison teams of veteran managersdrawn directly from key vertical markets.Team members work side by side with cus-tomers to identify high priority businessneeds, and with partners from the extendedIntel ecosystem to develop and bring to mar-ket targeted solutions.

SMDG’s mandate is to help businessestransform their processes and operations –reducing cycle times, trimming inventories,improving product and service quality,reducing costs – by changing the waypeople, processes, technology, and informa-tion interact across the enterprise. Today’stransformation sweet spot combines aninnovation like RFID with service-orientedapplication architectures and distributedcompute infrastructures that expose thenew data stream to users and applicationssubject to policy-based security and work-flow management. Solutions that acceleratedecision making with real-time data candeliver significant competitive advantage,putting their users “one generation ahead”of their peers.

Evaluating RFID Inside Intel With the world’s busiest chip fabricationplants in its own back yard, Intel is evaluat-ing application of RFID in its own manufac-turing operations. A wide range ofpotential RFID applications are currentlyunder investigation, including fab equip-ment delivery tracking, die lot and otherwork-in-progress tracking, and environ-mental monitoring. Intel is also exploringjoint pilots with upstream supply chainpartners and OEM customers.

Taking the Long View:Research at Intel To help define the long-term potential of remote sensing and identification, Intelconducts forward-looking research in

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technologies and usage models for RFID andother sensory technologies. Are there ways to help memory-impaired individuals regaintheir independence? Can RFID tagged plantsimprove crop yields? What innovations are required to enable next-generation smartdust and ad hoc sensor networks? Do suchnetworks have public safety applications in areas such as flood plain monitoring and

early warning? Intel-funded research is findinganswers to many such questions. Intel hasestablished RFID research laboratories in cooper-ation with the University of Washington; theUniversity of California, Berkeley; CarnegieMellon; and Cambridge Universities. Intel andits research collaborators are committed to theopen publication of all research findings.

Committing to a Critical TechnologyIntel is convinced that RFID technology will trans-form, accelerate and improve business process-

es, increase productivity, and dramaticallyreduce operating costs, with a range ofapplications that are certain to expand fordecades to come. The early kernels arealready evident in retail, government,manufacturing, and health care.

Because of our direct involvementwith end customers, Intel plays a key role insharing best practices to widen the pool of

experience and innovation. As Intel Chairmanand Founder Andy Grove said many years ago,“All innovation happens vertically. Those inno-vations that succeed, have the opportunity toscale horizontally.”

RFID is exactly that kind of innovation. It’shappening in retail now – with big names likeWal-Mart, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Gillette,and Metro AG behind it. But that is only thebeginning.

For more information on Intel’s involvementwith RFID technology development, please visit:www.intel.com/go/retail. ■

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Intel, the world’s largest chip manufactur-er, is working with leading consulting,integration, software, and hardwarecompanies to develop powerful, integrat-ed RFID-EPC solutions for the retail andCPG industries using hardware and soft-ware based on robust, open-standards-based architectures.

Craig BarrettChief Executive Officer

Intel CorporationCorporate Office2200 Mission College Blvd.Santa Clara, CA 95052-8119Phone 408.765.8080Fax 408.765.9904

Intel Corporation (U.K.) Ltd.Pipers WaySwindon, Wiltshire SN3 1RJUnited KingdomPhone +44.0.1793.403000Fax +44.0.1793.641440

Business ContactBryan ThurstonPhone 503.677.5575bryan.thurston@intel.com

Figure 1 Analyzing Data With RFID-EPC Technology