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TWST: May we start with a brief introduction of your company and a short history?
Mr. Bravman: Intelleflex was founded in 2003, around the idea that there was an opportunity to take Radio
Frequency Identification ("RFID") technology to the next level - by delivering RFID-based solutions platforms for that
did much more than serve as a "wireless bar code". Our specific focus is around a technology called battery-assisted
passive RFID, which has a set of important incremental capabilities above and beyond the forms RFID best known today.
Our founders believed that those incremental capabilities would be important to solving a set of business problems that
could not be addressed using any combination of existing RFID or bar code technologies. TWST: Can you elaborate on the technology that your RFID product incorporates ?
Mr. Bravman: RFID sits within a family of related technologies called "automatic data capture" or "automatic
identification" technology. The "auto ID" space includes such technologies as bar coding (both one and two dimensional),
voice recognition, machine vision, and magnetic stripe reading. An important and relatively recent addition to the field is
RFID. There are two parts to an RFID system: readers and tags. We make both, and position the combination as an
"intelligent RFID platform" because of the powerful features we offer.
There are several types of RFID. The most commonly known is "passive" RFID. Here, the circuitry in the tag is
powered by harvesting the incoming RF energy from a reader. Further, the return signal from the tag to the reader is in the
form of a reflection or, technically speaking, a backscattering of the inbound energy from the reader.
At the other end of the spectrum is a collection of technologies collectively knows as "active" RFID. Here, the
tags both receive and transmit an RF signal during communications with a reader, and have an on-board battery to power
their circuitry.
So passive tags can be thought of as sort of the RF equivalent of a wiggling mirror reflecting back a signal to the
reader using its own energy, while active RFID tags use their own powered transmitter to send information back to the
reader, and can be thought of as a two way radio.
Our technology combines elements of those two technologies, and is called "battery-assisted passive". (Others
have called it semi-active or semi-passive.) We believe that our implementation of this technology is a best of both worlds
combination of passive and active technologies.
Like passive, the information transfer from the tag back to the reader is in the form of reflected energy from the
reader. There is no active transmitter in the tag. However, there is a battery present that allows us to amplify the inbound
RF signal from the reader to the tag, thus rendering the tag much more sensitive. The battery also provides local power for
the tag, independent of inbound energy from the reader. The result: the tag is able to read at a much greater distance as
compared to passive tags (70 meters or longer vs. 1 to 3 meters for passive systems), and much more reliably under
difficult conditions (such as when tags are placed on metal or around liquids).
Battery-assisted passive tags, especially as embodied in our single-chip design, are simpler, lower cost, more
compact and offer superior battery life as compared to active tags. You get the capability of an active tag - long-range
reading, the ability to work in difficult RF conditions, and the ability to put important incremental functions on the chip
(like temperature sensing, which we'll offer in 2007), but at a price point closer to that of passive tags.
To summarize: we offer a very high capability, high performance RFID platform, comprising tags and readers, at
a great value point. We achieve this as a result of our tags being based on a single chip, battery-assisted passive design,
offering breakthrough features.
Tickers included in this excerpt: PVT
For more information call (212) 952 7433. The
Wall Street Transcript does not endorse any of the comments made by interviewees, and does
not make stock recommendations.
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