RFID solutions provider Impinj today announced the launch of two components for implementing item-level RFID across retail markets and supply chains. Impinj’s Monza® 5 tag chip and STP™ source tagging platform are expected to enable widespread scaling of RFID retail inventory management solutions.

The new products were driven by the Item-Level RFID Initiative announced last November by major retailers including Walmart, Macys and Kohls. The STP source tagging platform, which is capable of encoding up to 1,750 tags per minute, will be commercially available in May.

“We’ve been able to encode tags at speed of 1,750 tags per minute in an inline situation and over 1,100 tags per minute in a bulk situation,” says Scot Stelter, senior director of product marketing at Impinj. “These are very high speeds and over 6 times faster than other chips and systems. So it’s a significant step forward. This is not just an incremental improvement. This is not just going from 90 tags a minute to 100 tags minute.”

The Monza 5 chip, optimized for single-use tag applications that demand high read reliability and low applied tag costs, is already available. The Monza 5 is expected to eventually phase out the popular Monza 3 chip.

Watch for this week’s issue of RFID 24-7 for more in-depth coverage on this development.