Thermoformed Blister Packaging

It is a rigid plastic sheet heated until pliable, then vacuum formed over an aluminum mold to create a cavity shaped to your product. The formed sheet is trimmed and heat sealed to a printed card or foil backing, so the product is visible on shelf but cannot be removed without opening the pack. The same process makes protective dunnage trays when no card is used.

A face seal blister is sealed to the front face of a single coated card. It uses the least material, costs the least, and is the easiest for a shopper to open. A trap blister sandwiches the formed blister between a front and a back card, so the pack is tamper evident and much harder to open without scissors. Choose face seal for light, low-risk products and trap blister for theft-prone or high-value items.

For shallow, single-surface parts, yes, mainly because of tooling. A thermoform tool is machined from aluminum rather than hardened steel, so it costs a fraction of an injection mold and is ready in weeks rather than months. Injection molding wins once the part needs ribs, bosses, threads, or varying wall thickness, and once volumes are high enough for the per-part saving to repay the mold. Our engineers wrote a full comparison: injection molding vs thermoforming.

Aluminum thermoform tooling is typically ready in about two to three weeks, because we design and machine it on our own CNC equipment rather than queuing behind an outside toolmaker. Cavity adjustments between samples are quick for the same reason. Your confirmed tooling and production lead time comes back with your quote.

PET gives excellent clarity and better toughness, is widely recycled, and is available with recycled content as RPET. PVC seals at a lower temperature, draws deeply, and is usually the cheaper sheet, but it is harder to recycle and is restricted by some retailers and regions. PETG sits above both when you need high toughness and fine formed detail, which is why device and medical trays often use it.

In most cases yes. RPET runs on the same aluminum tooling as virgin PET, so hitting a recycled-content target usually does not mean a new tool or a redesigned pack. We do run samples first, because recycled sheet can behave slightly differently on deep draws and at the seal, and we would rather find that on a sample than on a production run.

Yes. Anti-static sheet grades are available for blisters and transport trays that carry boards, sensor modules, and cable assemblies, giving ESD control alongside impact protection. Tell us the sensitivity class you are designing to and we will match the grade.

There is no minimum order quantity. Because aluminum tooling is comparatively inexpensive, thermoforming is practical from small validation batches through to millions of units on the same tool, which suits a staged product launch.

Yes, and it is the reason most customers consolidate here. We run injection molding, extrusion, blow molding, CNC machining, and 3D printing alongside thermoforming, plus product assembly and surface finishing. One supplier can mold your part, form the pack that holds it, seal it, and ship it retail ready. See whole product manufacturing.

We produce medical-grade formed trays and blisters in PETG and PET for instruments, diagnostic devices, and single-use supplies, with lot traceability on every run under our IATF 16949:2016 quality system. If your programme requires a validated sterile barrier system or ISO 13485 certified packaging, tell us at enquiry stage so we can confirm scope before you commit.