German researchers move forward on plastic RFID chip

IDG News Service - Researchers in Germany have come one step closer to realizing a dream of manufacturers, retailers and other companies seeking advanced but inexpensive ways to trace products and materials: a cheap chip made of plastic that can be printed on foil the same way a newspaper is printed on paper.
Although PolyIC GmbH, a joint venture between Siemens AG and Kurz GmbH KG, isn't claiming to have developed the first integrated circuit made of polymer, it is taking credit for having created the world's fastest plastic chip to date -- at 600 KHz -- and having pioneered a technique to print circuits directly onto foils.
"We're still at the beginning of using polymer, an organic material, to mass-produce inexpensive chips that could be used, for instance, as RFID tags, but we're moving steadily ahead," said Wolfgang Mildner, managing director of PolyIC in Erlangen, Germany.
Using its technology, PolyIC plans to next year begin production of a plastic 4-bit chip that could be used for applications such as forgery-proof labeling, according to Mildner. The next step will be a 32-bit chip aimed at applications in the logistics sector.
By 2008, PolyIC hopes to have a chip with a storage capacity of 128 bits and a processing speed of 13.56 MHz to comply with radio frequency identification (RFID) standards, according to Mildner.
Today's bar code labels, which many companies hope to replace with RFID tags, have a typical storage capacity of 44 bits.
The prototype plastic chips of PolyIC contain at least four layers placed on a foil substrate made of a special type of polyester. The electrodes consist of conductive polymers. Above them is a semiconductive layer made from poly-3 alkylthiophene, followed by an insulating polymer layer and a counter-electrode.
Mildner referred to the process as "a chip evolving on foil and becoming one."
The plastic chips are only a few square centimeters in area and have a thickness of 1 micrometer, while the electrodes and the semiconductor layer account for only a few hundred nanometers of the total.
In the lab printing process, researchers use stamps to print the conductors. Then they coat the foil with the semiconductor and insulator using a type of squeegee technology that is common in the textile-printing industry.
PolyIC's goal is to produce RFID chips that cost 1.3 cents, said Norbert Aschenbrenner, a spokesman in the Siemens research and development division. Prices for silicon-based RFID chips range from 39 cents to 66 cents.
PolyIC was launched after Siemens decided to spin off its plastic chip research