(a) A very good NFC chip maker?
One of the largest manufacturer of NFC devices is NXP Semiconductor. They have a variety of different tags that can be purchased from commodity electronics vendors. Here is a link to their NFC site:
http://www.nxp.com/campaigns/nfc/
(b) If I get one, then how do I program it?
NXP also has an Android app on Google Play that allows you to use your Android device to program compatible NFC tags with data from your device. I would recommend you use it as a starting point:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nxp.nfc.tagwriter&hl=en