Philips Research is developing a low cost RFID tag which is based on plastic electronics, is thin as a paper as is just the size of postage stamp. It is expected that this tag would replace existing barcodes in the future in order to provide individual packages with a unique item level identification code. As compared to silicon chip based RFID tags which require additional assembly sites, these chips can be printed directly onto a plastic substrate along with an antenna.

These tags can transmit multi bit digital identification codes at 13.56 MHz. As of now plastic RFID tags are still in research phase and are not yet being produced commercially.

This is what the researchers have to say:

In order to fully exploit all the benefits of plastic electronics for RFID application, the tags would have to be manufactured by reel-to-reel/in-line processing instead of batch processing-this will take a couple of more years of research.