Pragmatic’s senior director of product management discusses the company’s latest technologies and plans for the future

Pragmatic Semiconductor has launched a range of new technologies in recent years, particularly its Pragmatic NFC Connect system, which uses Pragmatic’s FlexIC (flexible integrated circuit) technology to provide connectivity for packaging. This has caught the eye of investors and the industry alike. Ravi Shankar Sundaram, senior director of product management, Pragmatic Semiconductor, offers his insights into Pragmatic’s latest developments and its plans for the future.

PE Now:  What is the history behind Pragmatic Semiconductor?
Ravi Shankar Sundaram: Fifteen years ago, our vision was simple but bold – what if semiconductors could be made differently? Instead of rigid, expensive and limited to silicon, could they be flexible, low-cost, fast to produce and sustainable?

Pragmatic was founded by academic Richard Price and serial entrepreneur Scott White in 2010 with this vision to create ultra-thin, flexible microchips – an ambition rooted in “pragmatic printing” research. In 2012, collaboration with the UK’s Centre for Process Innovation helped translate early R&D into a scalable manufacturing model.

Our first production line opened in 2018, and in 2021, we collaborated with semiconductor IP giant Arm to produce PlasticArm, an ultra-minimalist Arm® Cortex®-M0 based system-on-a-chip, which was 12 times more complex than previous state-of-the-art flexible electronics.

In 2023, we achieved a record-breaking £162 million Series D raise, backed by M&G Catalyst and the National Wealth Fund. The largest ever in Europe for a semiconductor company, it has enabled us to accelerate our UK expansion to meet the growing global demand for our unique technology. We are now on track to become the largest semiconductor manufacturer in the UK by wafer volume by the end of 2025.

PE Now:  What are Pragmatic’s key markets?
Ravi Shankar Sundaram: We supply customers and partners globally, supporting their innovation roadmaps where there is a growing need for electronics in areas where traditional semiconductors were too costly, too slow to manufacture, or physically unsuitable.

We used this market need to guide our initial concepts and the recently launched Pragmatic NFC Connect product, which has application wherever smart functionality is traditionally constrained by cost, supply chain and sustainability challenges. We’ve seen significant market demand in fast-moving consumer goods – such as food and beverage, apparel, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics – with applications rapidly extending to smart health and wellness devices, toys and games, and food freshness detection.

Powered by our unique FlexIC (flexible integrated circuit) technology, NFC Connect delivers industry-standard NFC endpoint capability in an ultra-thin, flexible form factor with an industry-leading carbon footprint. It allows inlay manufacturers, label convertors, and service bureaus to empower brands to effortlessly integrate NFC functionality into products or packaging – even on curved surfaces – delivering smarter, more connected experiences and deeper levels of consumer engagement at scale.

PE Now:  Over the years, Pragmatic’s focus has evolved, to where it is now a semiconductor manufacturer? How has this evolution occurred?
Ravi Shankar Sundaram: It was always our goal to manufacture semiconductors at scale. In 2013, we launched a pilot manufacturing line at the National Centre for Printable Electronics within the Centre for Process Innovation in County Durham, part of Innovate UK’s Catapult network. Then, in 2018, we opened our first 200mm fab, which allowed us to start producing semiconductors at scale.

In 2024, HRH The Princess Royal officially opened Pragmatic Park, our flagship production base in County Durham and home to the UK’s first 300mm semiconductor fab. The site has potential for up to nine production lines, each producing billions of chips a year.

Our goal is to unlock new frontiers for flexible ICs by combining technology capabilities with market forces to meet a need, exploring the markets of potential customers and capitalising on material science innovation.

PE Now:  What separates Pragmatic from other companies?
Ravi Shankar Sundaram: Our innovative technology. Aside from being ultra-thin and physically flexible with a uniquely low carbon footprint, FlexICs are significantly cheaper and faster to produce than traditional chips. They enable new applications that are simply not possible with silicon – and they do it without the hefty environmental impact.

That’s due to their unique, low-temperature fabrication technology. This innovative, optimised manufacturing process uses fewer steps than silicon semiconductor fabrication: ~30 steps, the majority at room temperature, compared to 400+ process steps, some processed at temperatures of over 1000°C.

This, in combination with short cycle times, takes chips from design to delivery in weeks – and significantly reduces consumption of energy, water and harmful chemicals, resulting in a carbon footprint that’s orders of magnitude smaller.

PE Now:  How has the partnership with Avery Dennison benefited Pragmatic?
Ravi Shankar Sundaram: Avery Dennison is a key strategic investor in Pragmatic. Having access to their insight and expertise has been invaluable. We share an appetite for innovation and a common goal of enabling clients to pursue exciting new market opportunities through item-level intelligence at scale.

PE Now:  How is commercialization going and are there any examples where we can see Pragmatic’s semiconductors on the market?
Ravi Shankar Sundaram: For us, it’s about capitalising on market opportunities and supporting our customers in an agile way with speed and efficiency.

Areas of focus include smart packaging and item-level traceability in fast-moving consumer goods such as food and beverages, apparel, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, extending to consumer electronics, and toys and games. Further applications include sensor solutions, driving scalable data collection for IoT/industrial usage, as well as flexible, high-density interconnects and passive component integration, enabling complex functionality in thin, lightweight consumer electronic devices.

PE Now:  Is there a plan to start manufacturing outside of the UK that you can share?
Ravi Shankar Sundaram: We’re proud of our British heritage, so while we’re ramping up our operations in the US and China, we have no immediate plans to shift our manufacturing base. We’ve made significant investment in our headquarters in Cambridge, as well as our manufacturing base in Durham, and we anticipate creating 500 highly skilled jobs in the UK over the next five years from a diverse domestic and global talent pool.

PE Now:  Is there anything you would like to add?

Ravi Shankar Sundaram: We are moving quickly to serve our global market. In addition to launching our NFC Connect Product portfolio and FlexIC Platform Gen 3, we are scaling production with the expansion of manufacturing in Pragmatic Park to address the opportunity for customers such as inlay manufacturers and enabling new levels of customer engagement for consumer brands.

We also provide access to our FlexIC technology platform for customers looking to develop and scale products via our foundry services, enabling rapid prototyping and production with fabrication cycle times as short as a few days.