A flexible skin formed of silicon islands encapsulated in a polyimide film. The silicon islands preferably include a MEMS device and are connected together by a polyimide film (preferably about 1-100 m thick). To create the silicon islands, silicon wafers are etched to a desirable thickness (preferably about 10-500 m) by Si wet etching and then patterned from the back side by reactive ion etching (RIE).