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The supermarket express line may finally live up to its billing if research into plastic microchips at Cambridge University meets its potential. Flexible chips embedded in the label on a bottle of pasta sauce or can of chicken noodle soup could send their prices by radio signal to the checkout scanners without leaving the cart, claim scientists at the British university. Amadeus Capital Partners in Cambridge, England, recently formed a start-up, Plastic Logic, to commercialize the technology.

Because they're much less costly and simpler to manufacture than silicon-based chips, the plastic devices have sundry potential uses in everything from clothing to bottles. Plastic Logic is somewhat guarded about the manufacturing method, but news stories note the devices are made with a technique similar to ink-jet printing. The chips could be printed on a roll of film and applied to everyday objects. Richard Friend of Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory and Henning Siringhaus, a lecturer at Cavendish, are directing the research.

The technology's backers are hyping it to the heavens. Hermann Hauser, head of Amadeus Capital, asserts that plastic microchips will spark a revolution in the semiconductor industry. "We're going to be 'Plastic Valley.' It's all down to the sheer brilliance of Richard Friend and Henning Siringhaus." Plastic Logic hopes to jump-start the revolution sometime this summer, when it expects to introduce prototypes.