RFID Journal Staff asked 10 years ago And, if so, would this include the antenna and chip?
—Name withheld
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No. At present, virtually all RFID tags are manufactured with silicon chips made at a wafer fabrication facility. The wafer goes through many different steps to create the microchip. The chip is later attached to an antenna by a separate machine.
That said, there are companies working on printing microchips, and there is no reason why, if you are printing the chip, you could not also print the antenna. To date, printed electronics have not had the performance to match that of conventional silicon chips, so they have not been widely used—but it is likely that at some point, you will be able to print the chip and the antenna with the same machine, and hit a price-performance threshold that will make printed RFID tags viable.
—Mark Roberti, Founder and Editor, RFID Journal
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