Flexible Etched Circuits (FECs) are a key component of smartcards. A smartcard incorporates integrated circuits such as memory and a microcontroller.Smartcards are now at the heart of a host of consumer, financial and public sector applications around the world, including SIMs for mobile telephony, banking, ID and health cards to name a few.

In all such applications, the FEC provides the contact (and therefore enables communication) between the smartcard and an electronic reader.