Pub Talk

POWER PUB: THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2004
"IPv6 vs. EPC: A FACE OFF ON THE RFID BATTLEGROUND"
Co-Pub Master: Dr. Rohit Gupta, Group Leader, NPTest, Inc. & Research Associate, Silicon Valley World Internet Center & Mr. Dinesh Vadhia, Founder, FortyOne, Inc.
5:00 p.m.: Networking
5:30 p.m.: Pub Exchange
6:30 p.m.: Networking
7:00 p.m.: Pub Closes!
Open to the Public. Fee: $15 (cash or check, payable at the door).

To view the Power Pub presentation, click Here. (377kb .pdf)

As the marketplace for RFID warms up, questions arise as to the key choices for the standards affecting the use of tags in supply chain management and other applications. If the Auto-ID Center's Electronic Product Code (EPC) is expensive or its standards are not well defined, the U.S. military could use tags that would carry a unique Internet Protocol address using the next generation Internet Protocol called IP Version 6, or IPv6. It expands the length of Internet addresses to 128 bits, which means that there will be enough addresses to give one to every item on earth. The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has mandated that its battlefield network use IPv6 by the end of 2006.

Meanwhile, on the retail side of the RFID arena, Wal-Mart announced in 2003 that it will require its suppliers to place RFID transponders using EPC technology on pallets and cases by January 2005.

Here is the challenge: DOD suppliers are larger than Wal-Mart's. They include the likes of Boeing and Lockheed, and therefore if EPC is not accepted outside of the consumer packaged goods industry, its success will be incredibly diminished.

Please join us at the Power Pub for a townhall-style discussion around this issue. Guiding questions for the evening are:

• What are the similarities and differences between IPv6 and EPC implementation of RFID?
• Which route will be more effective? IPv6 or EPC?
• What are the roadblocks to the implementation of either technology?

ABOUT ROHIT GUPTA

Rohit Gupta is a Group Leader at NPTest, Inc. (http://www.nptest.com/), which traces its rich history back to 1965 when Fairchild Semiconductor established an automated test equipment (ATE) division. In 1979, Schlumberger acquired Fairchild Semiconductor; and in 2003, NPTest became a private company. Dr. Gupta has worked with clients such as Intel, AMD, and Sun Microsystems and is responsible for systems engineering. He also serves as a Research Associate at the Silicon Valley World Internet Center. His current research topics are RFID and the Next Generation Internet. Dr. Gupta is also interested in nanotechnology and is a member of nanoSIG. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a Ph.D. in engineering and worked on projects for ONR (Office of Naval Research) and DOE (Department of Energy).

ABOUT DINESH VADHIA

Dinesh Vadhia is the founder of FortyOne, Inc., an RFID middleware software company. Mr. Vadhia has been a senior marketing management professional at Oracle and Sun with a track record of winning in the competitive software market. Mr. Vadhia has a background in engineering and marketing. Originally from London, England, he received an MSc and BSc in Applied Math from Cranfield Institute of Technology and the University of Kent.

Mr. Vadhia passionately believes that of all the standards to come out of the Auto-ID Center the EPC standard is of the greatest value and that eventually the RFID.