13.56-MHz RFID tag made of flexible organic materials is a cost breakthrough

Though RFID communication devices and protocols have been developed in the past and exist today, in their present form they cannot be used on a large scale to enable communications with everyday objects.

The fundamental reason has been the silicon technology employed to realize it. Even in its most optimistic projection, cost remains at least an order of magnitude higher than the cost of a technology such as a barcode. Therefore, a new generation of devices is required to enable ambient intelligence at the right cost point to be truly applicable everywhere.

This challenge was addressed by PolyApply, an integrated project funded by the European Union. PolyApply is a consortium of 18 partners from industry and research that focuses on the objective of laying the foundation of a scalable and widely applicable communication technology. The key to achieving a cost point that would be lower than might be achievable with the evolution of the existing technologies such as CMOS is to move resolutely toward a revolutionary new manufacturing technology — and also to go from batch processing to in-line manufacturing technology.

The semiconductor system envisaged to this is based on organic semiconductors, which are small molecules and polymers. The partners chose a RFID tag to demonstrate the different process technologies as well as materials and devices developed in the course of the project.

This 13.56 MHz tag consists of single devices - an antenna, a resonance capacitor, a rectifier, a ring oscillator and a modulator - made by the various partners of the consortium. Each of these devices is built on organic semiconductors, conductors and/or dielectrics, on flexible substrates and produced with inline-compatible manufacturing processes.