The ability to mass produce electronics circuitry is one of the key benefits of flexible electronics. It is also one of the challenges that is facing the growing industry.
 
PragmatIC is successfully manufacturing and selling its flexible integrated circuits (FlexICs), announcing in early 2019 that it has received orders for more than 20 million FlexICs. Since then, Baoshen Group, one of China’s leading packaging material suppliers for footwear, apparel, bags, furniture, cosmetics and accessories, has placed an order for FlexICs. This is significant, as Baoshen Group has an annual capacity of 7 billion print items and 1 billion RFID labels.
 
PragmatIC CEO Scott White said that the company has been preparing for large scale orders for some time. He noted that the company’s FlexLogIC system is specifically designed for high throughput production. In fully automated mode it has annual capacity for approximately 1 billion circuits, with production cycle time less than 24 hours.
 
 “While sales growth has been even faster than anticipated, we have always been targeting mass market applications so our business is set up to handle it,” he added. “Currently our main focus is scaling production with our new FlexLogIC ‘fab-in-a-box’ line. We have also been putting effort into ensuring that our customers can use their existing Mühlbauer assembly equipment to manufacture RFID tags using our flexible ConnectIC circuits.”
 
PragmatIC recently launched its low cost PR1100 ConnectIC series, which is designed for use for inventory, item tracking and brand authentication in closed HF RFID systems. PragmatIC notes that the PR1100 series offers rapid detection of objects when one or more low-cost custom readers are integrated into the system, and can be used on paper and plastic substrates.
 
“The ConnectIC family is set to bring connectivity to items we buy every day,” said White. “We have already started shipping to our partners and we anticipate rapid expansion based on clear opportunities for global customers with extensive brand portfolios who wish to add traceability and interactivity to their products. Since our initial PR1100 series products are designed for closed system applications, they are often not visible publicly. Reported use cases include end-to-end management of waste and recycling, and tracking pathology samples within the UK’s National Health Service.” 
 
PragmatIC’s target market segments include food and beverage, personal and home care, pharmaceutical and healthcare, and toys and games, but White noted there are also significant opportunities in niche areas.
 
“We have also seen customer pull into various other applications that we had not anticipated, for example a project for the UK government on waste management led to a field trial in tire recovery,” White said. “Even such relatively niche applications can be significant opportunities for item-level tagging – 40 million used tires are processed every year in the UK alone.”
 
White said that PragmatIC’s strong order book and proven use cases all validate the uniqueness of its technology, relying on its ultra-low cost as well as extreme thinness, flexibility and durability. PragmatIC will continue to increase production in the UK through 2019.
 
“Most of our customers have previously considered RFID but could not make their use case work with conventional silicon-based tags,” he added.  “Global companies, eager to enhance their digital presence, have quickly identified a variety of exciting use-cases for connectivity in everyday items.”
 
White said that PragmatIC is developing new applications for the future.
 
“In the near term, our primary focus is continued growth based on our ConnectIC family, both the initial PR1100 series as well as new products that will be released in the coming months,” White added. “We also continue to work on several customer-funded projects developing functionality beyond RFID, which we expect to evolve into new product families over the next several years. Many of these involve sensing, both simple threshold detectors (e.g. time/temperature indicators) and more complex solutions such as an electronic nose.”
 

 

PragmatIC’s ConnectIC series. (Source: PragmatIC)