Packaging Made Smart with Paper-Thin Battery
Within the coming decade, consumers will see a revolution in the packaging for consumer and other products; packages will come alive with interactive messages aimed at catching the consumer's eye, and wallet.
Early versions of interactive packages that could appear on the market within a year may include cereal boxes that make noises to entice children to eat breakfast, and compact discs with packaging that contains movie themes and which could show a brief scene from a movie. In addition, packages could carry information about themselves, so that the manufacturer knows where they are at any time as they travel through the distribution channel, which in turn could cut counterfeiting, theft and loss.
Smart Packaging
International Paper, a Purchase, New York-based company - the largest supplier of paper and packaging materials in the world - is trying to incorporate a number of new technologies into its packaging to add value to its products. The company recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Power Paper to develop and manufacture electronic packages using thin and flexible microelectronic components. Power Paper's ultra-thin, flexible battery will be put into a sub-assembly with a microchip by Thinergy, and then shipped in packaging to consumer goods companies.
"We have significant interest from customers to produce high-tech e-packaging, for everything from movie packages that can play clips from a film, to restaurant take-out packages that double as a child's toy," said Eitan Avni, director of e-packaging development at International Paper.
The Power Paper battery is almost as flexible as paper, so it can be made into almost any shape or size, according to the company. Unlike conventional batteries, it does not come in a hermetically sealed metal case, but instead is laid down flat in layers on paper (see Fig). The battery gets voltage from ink-like materials that can be printed by standard silkscreen printing presses, so they are low-cost to produce, Power Paper said. The battery ingredients are non-toxic and disposable.
Product Tracking
International Paper is trying other technologies as well, including radio frequency ID (RFID) tags, to help manufacturers and retailers track products.
"We're putting an RFID tag on everything that moves in the North American supply chain," said Steven Van Fleet, program director of e-packaging and silent commerce for International Paper.
RFID tags, embedded with a new electronic product code under development by MIT and a consortium of industry and standards groups, including International Paper, can be used for tracking each product, from its origin to the consumer. The electronic product code can hold far more information than today's bar codes, and with RFID technology, it can be read at any angle, and can even be printed on the inside of packaging to prevent tampering. In addition, an electronic product code can be put, for example, on each individual bottle of shampoo, rather than just on the boxes holding a batch of shampoo bottles, as is the custom with bar codes today.
Van Fleet said store shelves will be retrofitted or built from scratch with scanners that can read information about products on the shelf, and even alert manufacturers through a network that the shelf needs to be restocked. It is also likely that future cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDA) will be able to read RFID tags.
"A lot of people think this technology is 10 years away and too expensive, but that's not correct," said Van Fleet.
by Lori Valigra
(May 2001 Issue, Nikkei Electronics Asia) |
