Contact smart card
AssigneeJohnson Electric S.A.
InventorsVincent Daniel Jean SALLE, Teck De LOI, Arthur DEMASO
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A contact smart card has a smart card contact pad and an IC chip. The smart card contact pad includes a circuit substrate, a card-reader contact element on a first side of the circuit substrate, and a connection element on a second side of the circuit substrate. The card-reader contact element has a noble metal electrically conductive surface, and the connection element has a chip terminal connection surface which is not a noble metal. The IC chip is preferably flip-chip mounted at the second side of the circuit substrate and electrically connected to the chip terminal connection surface. Furthermore, the chip terminal connection surface is preferably an organometallic electrically conductive corrosion protection layer.
Claims20
A contact smart card comprising a smart card contact pad and an IC chip, wherein the smart card contact pad comprises a circuit substrate, a card-reader contact element on a first side of the circuit substrate, and a chip connection element on a second side of the circuit substrate which is opposite the first side, the card-reader contact element having a noble metal electrically conductive surface, the chip connection element having a chip terminal connection surface which is not a noble metal, and the IC chip being mounted at the second side of the circuit substrate and electrically connected to the chip terminal connection surface.
A method of forming a smart card contact pad, comprising the steps of:
- a] feeding a flexible carrier strip through a roll-to-roll transfer system;
- b] applying at least a noble metal card-reader layer at a first side of the flexible carrier strip;
- and
- c] applying a non-noble metal chip terminal connection layer at a second side of the flexible carrier strip which is opposite the first side.
A method of preventing or limiting oxidation of a non-noble metal chip terminal connection surface of a smart card contact pad, the method comprising the step of applying an organometallic electrically-conductive corrosion-protection layer to the whole of a non-noble metal chip terminal connection surface prior to mounting of an IC chip using a flip-chip mounting technique.
A smart card contact pad comprising a circuit substrate, an electrical circuit supported by the circuit substrate and having a card-reader contact element on a first side of the circuit substrate, and a chip connection element on a second side of the circuit substrate which is opposite the first side, the card-reader contact element having a noble metal electrically conductive surface, and the chip connection element having a chip terminal connection surface which is not a noble metal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.