The production disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has a major impact on the technology sector.
Although there was no serious problem in the first year of the pandemic, chip supply, one of the most important components of RFID tags, has been mentioned a lot especially after the second half of 2021 and has made itself felt in the last quarter of 2021.
Unfortunately, the most troubling consequence of this reduction was the price increase in the unit costs of RFID tags. On the other hand, due to supply problems, labels could not be supplied for some projects in spite of high budget allocation.
As of December 2021, when this article was written, there is a “relative” relief in chip supply, especially in automobile companies in the Far East. This good news will provide relief not only to those of us who work with chips but also to critical sectors such as automotive and white goods that have to use chips in almost every product. However, this information is so new that it may take a couple of months or more for to have an impact on our lives.
During this difficult period, Alien Technology and Impinj have experienced serious problems in the supply of inlays and labels. Impinj’s supply of next generation chips has also been disrupted. However, NXP/Philip, especially UCode 8 and UCode 9 chips have been released at the right time, providing some relief to the manufacturers in chip supply.
Regarding RFID readers, Impinj and Far Eastern contract/OEM manufacturers seem to have done well in this process. However, we can say that European and other US RFID reader manufacturers failed with supply periods that actually lasted 20-24 weeks.
The same situation applies to other hardware items such as RFID/barcode handheld terminals and RFID printers. Many projects have either been waiting or canceled due to supply periods that last 14-16 weeks.
If you don’t know how to distinguish RFID inlays or tags produced with clone chips during this process, please contact us. By consulting us, you can supply RFID hardware without failing neither your business nor your customers during this challenging process.
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