Subject: Re: Nine cents per chip
Yes, those tiny chips are cheap to make. We would get more than 30000 per 8" wafer. Not sure whose chip they are using. That is often printed on the chip, but at a cursory glance, they didn't seem to look for the logo. It was interesting how they actually deprocessed the chip. That's what I used to do for a living (failure analysis).

But really they are hazardous waste to be dumping in a landfill. The chip is doped with ions (like boron or phosphorous, mostly commonly), and the metal lines are usually Cu or Al. Dumping thousands of these paper tickets in a landfill probably isn't optimal. What's wrong with a simple barcode?

Yes, similar chips are in your credit cards, room key cards, and the like.