Alien Technology is a manufacturer of RFID technology. The company is headquartered in Morgan Hill, California, with an RFID tag manufacturing facility in Fargo, North Dakota, the Alien RFID Solutions Center, in the Dayton, Ohio area, and sales offices in the US, Europe and Asia. It currently employs approximately 235 people. Alien produces (EPC) Class 1 and Class 1 Gen 2 RFID inlays, tags and readers designed for use in manufacturing lines, warehouses, distribution centers, and retail stores.

Due to potential applications in a wide variety of mass-produced electronic devices, the company received funding and technical support from a number of other manufacturers, such as DuPont Displays and Philips Components. The company's stock symbol will be RFID, pending its listing on the NASDAQ. The company has established relationships with Wal-Mart, the U.S. Department of Defense, The Gillette Company, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Unisys, VeriSign, Manhattan Associates, Microsoft, The Kennedy Group, Nashua Corporation, NCR Corporation, Zebra Technologies and Paxar.

History

Alien Technology was founded in 1994, but was conceived on the idea of making low-cost LCD screens. They changed their manufacturing focus to RFID products and services in 2000. From 1994 through 2000, Alien focused on continued development of Fluidic Self Assembly technology (FSA), invented at University of California, Berkeley by Prof. John S. Smith.

2000

• August — Began manufacturing of passive UHF RFID products, including tags and readers using FSA, in Morgan Hill, California.

2001

• October — Acquired all of the assets of Wave ID, a privately held company specializing in RFID technology development, via a corporate buy-out.

2002

• September — Stav Prodromou is named the Chief Executive Officer1

2003

• January — Alien won an order from The Gillette Company for 500 million RFID tags. 2
• February — North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan issued a statement that Alien Technology would build a manufacturing plant in Fargo, North Dakota which could employ over 1,000 people with an annual payroll exceeding $50 million 3.
• July — Announcement made that the North Dakota State University Research and Technology Park would be the site for the planned expansion of its manufacturing operations in North Dakota.4

2004

• May — A temporary manufacturing facility, Area 53, in Fargo, North Dakota was opened to refine the company's manufacturing line.