We are syndicating this article from AdvancedManufacturing.org.
By Manfred Mueller, COO, and Michael Zehnpfennig, VP Engineering, both of Identiv Inc.
For most of its existence, the Internet of Things (IoT) has been shaped by a deceptively simple idea: Attach a tiny radio chip to an object and give it a digital identity. That formula powered early breakthroughs in retail inventory, warehouse visibility and basic asset tracking.
Today, expectations are changing. Industries want more than location data. They want to understand how objects have been handled, what conditions they’ve endured, and whether they remain safe, authentic or viable. This shift elevates the IoT tag from a passive identifier to something closer to a miniature electronic system–one that must sense, interpret and verify.
Building such systems at high speed and low cost requires a manufacturing model fundamentally different from the legacy radio-frequency identification (RFID) era. That model is multicomponent manufacturing (MCM).
From Single-Chip Simplicity to System-Level Complexity
In the early RFID years, manufacturing was elegantly straightforward. Etch an antenna, place a chip and roll the product off the line at extraordinary speed. The economics worked because the engineering was comparatively simple and the requirements were narrow.
But as IoT expanded into authentication, quality assurance and condition monitoring, the constraints of that single-chip architecture became increasingly visible. Food distributors needed proof that cold-chain conditions were preserved. Healthcare systems needed packaging that could confirm integrity and identify environmental excursions. Consumer electronics brands sought antennas, oscillators, sensors and power sources integrated into ultra-thin, durable formats.
These new requirements outpaced what traditional RFID machinery could assemble. IoT needed flexible electronic systems built at the same scale historically reserved for simple tags.
Early Ingenuity Sparked a New Manufacturing Model
Engineers at Identiv began experimenting with ways to adapt chip-assembly equipment for far more complex tasks. They introduced passive components–capacitors, resistors and crystals–onto flexible substrates by running materials through machines in multiple passes. A line designed for one component suddenly produced two, three and, eventually, four.
This ingenuity demonstrated what was possible, but it also exposed a deeper truth: Scalable MCM could not be achieved through workarounds alone. Throughput slowed, yields fluctuated and testing strained under the weight of rising demand and complexity.
Dedicated multicomponent assembly equipment eventually entered the market, allowing chips, sensors, crystals and even batteries to be placed in a continuous sequence. Yet, even with this new machinery, the defining challenge emerged clearly: Successful MCM depends as much on the equipment as the manufacturing expertise that surrounds it.
Why Equipment Alone Isn’t Enough
Multicomponent manufacturing is not merely an assembly method; it is an orchestration of interdependent disciplines. Product design, process engineering, test development, material science and reliability modeling must evolve in lockstep. A tiny change in substrate thickness can alter adhesive behavior. A new battery chemistry may demand a new curing profile. A revised antenna geometry can trigger a redesign of in-line testing.
MCM succeeds only when these variables align. That alignment is not created by machinery–it is created by depth of experience.
Organizations that have spent a decade refining these parameters have accumulated an asset that cannot be purchased: manufacturing intuition. They have tuned placement tolerances, curing processes, sensor-integration strategies, and error-testing and -classification models across thousands of production runs. They know how different materials behave under mechanical stress, how miniature batteries respond to environmental cycles and how sensor accuracy evolves over time.
This blend of process insight and interdisciplinary rigor is what transforms a machine into a production capability. It is also what separates multicomponent manufacturing from traditional RFID assembly in a profound way.
Multicomponent Manufacturing Essentials
Several converging trends are accelerating the shift toward MCM as a core IoT manufacturing foundation.
The first is the industry’s move from location data to verified truth. Temperature, humidity, light exposure, vibration and shock are no longer nice-to-have features; they are requirements for compliance, quality, authenticity, loss-prevention and safety. These measurements rely on components that sit outside the chip–and thus depend entirely on MCM.
Power architectures are evolving as well. Printed batteries introduce flexibility but require new lamination methods and environmental qualification. Coin cells deliver extended life but demand different mechanical integration. Organic and solar-assisted power sources are emerging, each with its own process sensitivities.
Finally, performance expectations are rising in environments that push IoT tags to their limits. Food crates pass through chemical-wash cycles. Pharmaceuticals endure global shipping conditions. Medical devices must maintain performance for years. Complex IoT elements must not only survive these environments–they must stay accurate. That level of durability cannot be achieved without precision in how components are assembled, bonded, protected and tested.
New Infrastructure Layer Shapes IoT’s Future
As IoT enters a more demanding and data-rich phase, multicomponent manufacturing is emerging as the layer that determines what connected systems can truly achieve. It influences sensing accuracy, longevity and reliability across wide temperature swings, mechanical stresses and real-world handling.
Many organizations are now purchasing multicomponent equipment. Far fewer are mastering the blend of process engineering, quality strategy, reliability modeling and design-for-manufacture that brings the full capability to life. Those with long-standing experience occupy a quiet but meaningful advantage: They understand how to make these systems work not only in the factory, but across thousands of miles, countless touchpoints and years of operational use. And they can navigate the development and reduce-to-practice pathway with a level of speed and intuition that only comes from years of refinement.
Technology Defines the Next Decade
Multicomponent manufacturing may never attract the headlines of AI, yet its influence already defines the boundaries of IoT innovation. As connected products evolve into sensing systems that verify authenticity, protect quality and capture environmental truth, the performance of the endpoint becomes a gating factor for everything upstream.
The next decade of IoT–smarter, more resilient and more context aware–will be shaped by advances occurring not only in software or chip design, but in the quiet precision of manufacturing lines assembling complex electronics on flexible substrates at extraordinary scale.
And the organizations that understand the full complexity of that craft today will be the ones shaping what becomes possible tomorrow.
