Can an RFID Kapton Label Be Printed With a Spacer for Use on a Printed Circuit Board?

My company is searching for an RFID label encapsulated in Kapton (a polyimide film developed by DuPont that remains stable at a wide range of temperatures) that would be very small—much like the 2D Kapton bar-code labels that are currently run through normal bar-code printers and are then affixed to many printed circuit boards (PCBs). The difference would be that it would be best to run these labels through an RFID printer, in order to print the 2D bar code and encode the RFID inlay simultaneously, for the purpose of internally tracking the boards. Most solutions we’ve seen involve a loop antenna, or use surface-mount equipment to just mount the RFID chip. This won’t work for us. Do any companies offer the ability to print an RFID Kapton label with a spacer required for use on a PCB, using a standard RFID label printer-encoder?

—Kevin

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Kevin,

Unfortunately, I am unaware of such a solution. Obviously, the spacer would be a problem for most label printers. I wonder if any of our readers have seen an RFID label solution that would work in the scenario you describe. If so, I ask that they please post information or a link below.

I also wonder if someone could create a film that could be sprayed onto labels exiting an printer, so that as they were applied to the PCB and heated, chemicals in the spray would turn to foam, thereby providing the spacer required to create separation between the RFID transponder and the board.

—Mark Roberti, Founder and Editor, RFID Journal