News

Kovio, a US developer of silicon-based semiconductors, has claimed it will "significantly reduce" the cost of item-level RFID tagging with a new all-printed silicon thin-film transistor (TFT).

Kovio, based in Silicon Valley, has also signed two separate joint development and distribution agreements to bring the product to market. One is with Toppan Forms, a printing, printable electronics and digital information specialist, and Cubic Transportation Systems, a provider of automated fare collection systems for public transport.

Kovio chief executive Amir Mashkoori claimed the TFT combined the "enabling performance of silicon with the cost structure of printing" to offer an extension to item-level tagging that the current silicon industry could not achieve.

Kovio's announcement comes a month after Domino and Canadian packaging firm Hide-Pack developed a system to make RFID more affordable by embedding RFID inlays in corrugated cases and folding cartons during packaging manufacture.

Kovio expects to start shipment of products by the end of 2008.