Businesses are seeing increasing demand for smart functionality in objects as consumer IoT demands expand at an unprecedented pace. While intelligence is becoming embedded into our daily lives, this vision relies on an enormous supply of semiconductors, which can be expensive and difficult to manufacture. Keeping up with requirements for affordable chips at pace requires fast, scalable and cost-effective processes, all of which points to the need for a new approach to semiconductor technology. Ravi Sundaram, Senior Director of Product Management, Pragmatic Semiconductor explains more.
But everyday items don’t need the cutting-edge chips used in smartphones or cars, and flexible NFC chips provide an alternative.
Key takeaways
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Not all IoT needs silicon-grade chips: Everyday products don’t require high-performance semiconductors. Flexible NFC chips offer a simpler, cheaper alternative that’s better suited to mass-market items.
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Flexible semiconductors are faster, cheaper, and greener to make: Using thin-film transistor technology, they require far fewer production steps, lower temperatures, and less energy, water, and chemicals—cutting costs, carbon footprint, and lead times from months to weeks.
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Their form factor unlocks new use cases: Ultra-thin and bendable, flexible chips can be embedded invisibly into packaging or curved surfaces, enabling intelligence in places traditional chips can’t go.
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They make NFC viable at massive scale: Lower cost and easier integration allow NFC to move beyond premium goods into FMCG and food packaging, enabling item-level digital interaction across entire product lines—without apps.
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They enable trust, transparency, and circularity: Flexible NFC chips can combat counterfeiting with secure digital identities, support digital product passports, and power reuse and recycling schemes—delivering value to both brands and consumers across the full product lifecycle.
FAQs
- What are flexible semiconductors? Flexible semiconductors are ultra-thin chips made using thin-film transistor technology on flexible substrates, allowing them to bend and integrate into everyday objects and packaging.
- How are flexible NFC chips different from traditional silicon chips? They use fewer manufacturing steps, operate at lower temperatures, cost less to produce, and have a much smaller environmental footprint, while still meeting the needs of mass-market IoT applications.
- What kinds of products can use flexible NFC chips? They can be embedded into packaging, clothing, footwear, food and beverage products, FMCG items, and reusable containers—even on curved or disposable surfaces.
- How do flexible NFC chips benefit brands and consumers? Consumers gain easy access to product information, rewards, and recycling guidance via a simple smartphone tap, while brands gain richer engagement, usage data, and ongoing digital interaction without apps.
- Can flexible NFC chips help with security and sustainability? Yes. They enable secure product authentication to combat counterfeiting, support digital product passports, and help power circular economy initiatives like deposit-return and reuse schemes.
Unlocking new possibilities with flexible chip design
Enter flexible semiconductors: a transformative technology poised to redefine what’s possible for the Internet of Things (IoT).
Unlike silicon chips, these semiconductors use thin film transistor technology and low temperature, resource-efficient production methods. Silicon requires hundreds of process steps, some at thousands of degrees Celsius, to achieve the ultra-pure state required for microchips. By contrast, flexible chips use a simple substrate of polyimide and 30-40 process steps, the majority at ambient temperature.
This naturally consumes far less energy and water, and fewer harmful chemicals, making them more sustainable and more cost-effective to make. It also makes the fabs used to create them smaller – and so quicker and more cost-effective to deploy.
This unique production method dramatically shortens production timelines, too, cutting development cycles from months to weeks. Lower set-up costs make customisation – and rapid iteration – economically viable, empowering design teams to move fast and experiment freely.
And because the chips are ultra-thin and physically flexible, they can be imperceptibly embedded in products or packaging – even on curved surfaces.
These unique advantages of cost, form factor and carbon footprint have created a new class of intelligence that’s more sustainable, more scalable – and takes smart functionality to new spaces.
Expanding the reach of NFC through flexibility
NFC has already proven its value in areas such as contactless payments, secure access and authentication of goods. Now, brands are increasingly using NFC to unlock richer consumer experiences. But its adoption has largely been limited to high-value goods or reusable devices, due to the cost – and environmental credentials – of conventional silicon chips.
Flexible NFC chips, however, remove those barriers, making it commercially viable to bring smarter interactivity to mass-market products, unlocking item-level intelligence at scale.
Sectors such as food and beverage and FMCG have long struggled to connect directly with consumers at the point of use. Packaging is often discarded, and engagement ends at checkout. But by embedding flexible chips directly into products, brands can open a digital channel that persists throughout the product lifecycle.
Consumers simply tap their smartphone to the pack to access instructions, promotional offers, refill services or loyalty programmes. This drives brand engagement, gathers usage data and supports more personalised marketing – all without requiring an app download. And because these chips are cost-effective and easy to integrate, this can be done across entire product lines.
Think of a pair of trainers that carries a unique digital identity, loyalty rewards tailored to location or season, or packaging that guides consumers through recycling. With flexible NFC chips, these applications are not futuristic concepts – they are a reality.
Once you unlock ubiquitous, scalable intelligence, every interaction becomes an opportunity. For consumers, this adds value and transparency. For brands, it means richer engagement, better data, and deeper customer relationships throughout the product lifecycle.
How flexibility can tackle other challenges
Flexible chips also have the power to tackle persistent challenges like counterfeiting and transparency.
Counterfeit goods cost global brands billions each year and undermine consumer trust. Existing authentication methods are often easy to forge or expensive to implement. But a flexible NFC chip can provide each product with a secure, embedded, unclonable identity.
This allows consumers, inspectors and supply chain partners to instantly verify authenticity, or provide instant access to a digital product passport (DPP), so customers can trace a product’s history and make informed choices. Brands, meanwhile, gain full visibility into where and when their products are being scanned.
The technology also extends to the circular economy. These chips can underpin intelligent deposit-return schemes for reusable packaging, incentivising recycling while giving manufacturers insight into product lifecycles.
A flexible future takes shape
Flexible NFC technology minimises cost and environmental impact, supporting more sustainable consumer habits and expanding the consumer IoT.
The demand for low-cost connectivity will continue to grow as the consumer IoT evolves, with item-level intelligence bringing the ability to communicate and generate insights to billions of products.
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