Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06K—GRAPHICAL DATA READING; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS
  • G06K19/00—Record carriers for use with machines and with at least a part designed to carry digital markings
  • G06K19/06—Record carriers for use with machines and with at least a part designed to carry digital markings characterised by the kind of the digital marking, e.g. shape, nature, code
  • G06K19/067—Record carriers with conductive marks, printed circuits or semiconductor circuit elements, e.g. credit or identity cards also with resonating or responding marks without active components
  • G06K19/07—Record carriers with conductive marks, printed circuits or semiconductor circuit elements, e.g. credit or identity cards also with resonating or responding marks without active components with integrated circuit chips
  • G06K19/077—Constructional details, e.g. mounting of circuits in the carrier
  • G06K19/07749—Constructional details, e.g. mounting of circuits in the carrier the record carrier being capable of non-contact communication, e.g. constructional details of the antenna of a non-contact smart card
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06K—GRAPHICAL DATA READING; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS
  • G06K19/00—Record carriers for use with machines and with at least a part designed to carry digital markings
  • G06K19/06—Record carriers for use with machines and with at least a part designed to carry digital markings characterised by the kind of the digital marking, e.g. shape, nature, code
  • G06K19/067—Record carriers with conductive marks, printed circuits or semiconductor circuit elements, e.g. credit or identity cards also with resonating or responding marks without active components
  • G06K19/07—Record carriers with conductive marks, printed circuits or semiconductor circuit elements, e.g. credit or identity cards also with resonating or responding marks without active components with integrated circuit chips
  • G06K19/077—Constructional details, e.g. mounting of circuits in the carrier
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06K—GRAPHICAL DATA READING; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS
  • G06K17/00—Methods or arrangements for effecting co-operative working between equipments covered by two or more of main groups G06K1/00 - G06K15/00, e.g. automatic card files incorporating conveying and reading operations
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06K—GRAPHICAL DATA READING; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS
  • G06K19/00—Record carriers for use with machines and with at least a part designed to carry digital markings
  • G06K19/005—Record carriers for use with machines and with at least a part designed to carry digital markings the record carrier comprising an arrangement to facilitate insertion into a holding device, e.g. an arrangement that makes the record carrier fit into an etui or a casing
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06K—GRAPHICAL DATA READING; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS
  • G06K19/00—Record carriers for use with machines and with at least a part designed to carry digital markings
  • G06K19/06—Record carriers for use with machines and with at least a part designed to carry digital markings characterised by the kind of the digital marking, e.g. shape, nature, code
  • G06K19/067—Record carriers with conductive marks, printed circuits or semiconductor circuit elements, e.g. credit or identity cards also with resonating or responding marks without active components
  • G06K19/07—Record carriers with conductive marks, printed circuits or semiconductor circuit elements, e.g. credit or identity cards also with resonating or responding marks without active components with integrated circuit chips
  • G06K19/077—Constructional details, e.g. mounting of circuits in the carrier
  • G06K19/07737—Constructional details, e.g. mounting of circuits in the carrier the record carrier consisting of two or more mechanically separable parts
  • G06K19/07741—Constructional details, e.g. mounting of circuits in the carrier the record carrier consisting of two or more mechanically separable parts comprising a first part operating as a regular record carrier and a second attachable part that changes the functional appearance of said record carrier, e.g. a contact-based smart card with an adapter part which, when attached to the contact card makes the contact card function as a non-contact card
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
  • G06K—GRAPHICAL DATA READING; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS
  • G06K19/00—Record carriers for use with machines and with at least a part designed to carry digital markings
  • G06K19/06—Record carriers for use with machines and with at least a part designed to carry digital markings characterised by the kind of the digital marking, e.g. shape, nature, code
  • G06K19/067—Record carriers with conductive marks, printed circuits or semiconductor circuit elements, e.g. credit or identity cards also with resonating or responding marks without active components
  • G06K19/07—Record carriers with conductive marks, printed circuits or semiconductor circuit elements, e.g. credit or identity cards also with resonating or responding marks without active components with integrated circuit chips
  • G06K19/077—Constructional details, e.g. mounting of circuits in the carrier
  • G06K19/07743—External electrical contacts

Definitions

• Assembly consisting of a micro-module and a reader which is equipped with contactless close communication means.
• the invention relates to micro-modules intended to be inserted into an electronic reader for the purpose of authenticating the holder of this micromodule or for the purpose of reading an amount of fees entered in such a micro-module.
• a micro-module is typically a smart card, in the form of a SIM card, a credit card or a prepaid card.
• Such a micro-module can also be a key operating according to the USB communication protocol, having a rigid finger shape or any other shape.
• micro-modules respond to numerous form constraints.
• the form factor remains fixed in format
• the card must indeed be easy to produce and comply with a very precise dimension to allow the positioning of the electrical contacts in line with the brushes of the connector of the reader.
• the thickness of the card is also standardized to ensure correct operation in the reader and to keep the general ergonomics of the smart card. This thickness around 0.8 mm is a very strong technical constraint.
• the difficulty encountered with these solutions is the availability of components such as LCD displays, batteries, buttons and display drivers which can be accommodated within the 0.8 mm thickness of the card body and which are sufficiently robust.
• An object of the invention is to respond to offering various form factors to the carriers of electronic micro-modules, and also to allow different functionalities to the carriers of these micro-modules despite the dimensional constraints involved.
• current micro-module holders cannot simply and immediately consult the balance of their electronic wallet or the last transactions carried out with their micro-module. For this they need to use terminals made available by their operator (bank, canteen terminal ...) or by purchasing portable readers such as an Xiring reader at significant costs.
• the invention also aims to allow a micro-module wearer to consult data associated with the micro-module in a facilitated manner.
• a reader 10 firstly comprises a reader body 11 which receives a chip card 20.
• the reader body 11 comprises external shells, access hatches to the card smart. It further comprises an antenna 12 of rectangular, round or oval shape produced as a wound, engraved or by depositing a conductive ink deposited on an insulator.
• the antenna 12 is designed to guarantee good RF coupling between the reader 10 and an external terminal such as a payment or access control terminal.
• the antenna 12 and the smart card 20 associated with the latter are designed to communicate with an external terminal only when the antenna 12 is placed in the immediate vicinity of such a terminal.
• the antenna 12 and the chip card 20 associated with the latter are provided so as to communicate with an external terminal only when the antenna 12 is placed a few centimeters from the terminal.
• the user of such a device must therefore initiate an association by immediate approximation between the reader 10 and a terminal, substantially in contact with the terminal although this contact is not necessary, so that the reader 10 communicates with the terminal.
• Communication will be understood to mean at least one-way information transfer, typically from card 20 to an external terminal.
• a transfer of information in the opposite direction can however also be implemented within the framework of the invention.
• the two ends of the present antenna 12 are connected to two brushes of a connector 13 for a card.
• the connector 13 for a smart card provides the connection between the contact pads of the micro-module 20 and the antenna present 12 in the reader. This connector can optionally also guide the card in positioning 20.
• the antenna 12 is a contactless close communication antenna.
• the reader also includes a switch, not shown, placed in cutoff on the antenna 12 to avoid a transaction without the knowledge of the card holder. The switch opens a turn of the antenna 12 to prevent the establishment of RF communication. A voluntary action by the wearer is necessary to close the circuit and activate the RF communication.
• the cut off of the antenna 12 prevents any communication and thus protects the card from any unauthorized communication.
• the invention offers the possibility of accommodating in the reader 10 not only such a switch, but also a battery 14, actuation buttons 15 and an LCD type display 16 without special constraints on the housing.
• the battery is advantageous for increasing the range and / or the speed of RF communication for passive components. It also makes it possible to increase security, and to switch to active mode such as for example on NFC components (near field communication) implemented by Philips and Sony.
• the battery 14 must have a large mass capacity in order to minimize the volume and the weight while ensuring the availability of the reader compatible with intensive use without recharging.
• the Battery technologies developed for cell phones are suitable for such a player.
• the reader works mainly in standby, only the receiver being partially active. Once the reader has activated a communication session with the third-party equipment, this session is checked periodically ("sniffing" technique) to check the proximity of the equipment. Between two activations, only the RF receiver is partially active. No electrical contact is required to recharge the battery 14.
• EMI Digital Fault Analysis
• the battery 14 is recharged by magnetic induction.
• the reader 10 thanks to an additional antenna 14bis embedded within it, and which constitutes the secondary of a magnetic transformer, allows the battery to be recharged. For this, the reader 10 is simply placed on a support which contains the primary of the transformer.
• a charge measurement device is integrated into the reader in order to warn its environment that the battery 14 is almost discharged or fully charged. This measurement can be transmitted by radio frequency link to a third party equipment having an adequate man / machine interface such as a personal computer.
• the reader 10 is here equipped with an LCD display 16 (Liquid Crystal Display) or OLED (Organic Light Emitted Diode) which displays in particular a battery charge gauge 14.
• the card advantageously satisfies the NFC (near field communication) protocol developed by Philips and Sony.
• the RF solution can be replaced by an IR connection.
• the card 20 has, in the example of FIG. 1, hardware and software resources to manage the display 16 and the buttons 15 or to communicate with a computing unit 17 of the reader 10.
• the reader 10 therefore has a unit of computation, and the communication between the card 20 and the computing unit 17 of the reader is carried out by a bus 17 bis which is here of the MMC (Memory Multimedia Card), SPI or any other bus compatible with this type of memory.
• the display 16 is controlled by the chip of the card 20 through a display driver stored and executed in the chip.
• the display allows, among other things, to display transactions and balances associated with the card 20.
• the reader will have an additional PCB (s) ) to allow their connections through the smart card connector to the micro-module.
• the keyboard 15 allows the creation of a human interface -machine to interrogate card 20, fill it in with a confidential user code (PIN) and navigate in various menus.
• the reader of FIG. 1 also has a USB connector 18.
• the USB connector 18 makes it possible to connect the card 20 to a computer for example. This function is particularly useful when using the same card or micro-module for PKI functions in USB protocol contact mode.
• An additional mass memory 19 (up to several tens of Megabytes) is placed in the reader 10 and is connected to the chip of the card 20.
• the content of the mass memory 19 is encrypted by an algorithm including the diversified secret key is only known to the card 20.
• the communication between this mass memory 19 and the chip of the card 20 is carried out by a bus 19bis of MMC type (Memory Multimedia Card), SPI or any other bus compatible with this type of memory.
• MMC type Memory Multimedia Card
• SPI Serial Peripheral Component Interconnect Express
• This mass memory 19 is required to contain private data such as service contracts, digital rights, private data, photos and other administrative data necessary if the card 20 cannot be connected to a local or global network (eg Internet) at through the reader
• a sound device buzzer
• visual device light-emitting diode
• a sound device buzzer
• visual device light-emitting diode
• An IR (infrared) communication device can also be placed in the reader 10 to be connected to the card 20. This device may allow data to be exchanged between the micro-module and other devices equipped with IR links.
• the reader can also include electronics allowing the reception of collective broadcasting waves.
• the reader may include a bar or plate of ferrite or magnetic materials. The reader can be used to offer additional information to the wearer (balance display, movements, etc.).
• the reader can also make the smart card or micro-module communicating thanks to the antenna 12 housed in the reader 10 and connected to the card 20 by a set of contacts so as to communicate with an external display device, not shown. .
• the reader 10 and its antenna 12 can also be in communication with the card via a contactless type link, using a communication antenna proximity to the card itself relayed by the antenna 12 of the reader 10.
• the integrated functions in this exemplary embodiment of the invention make it possible to optimize the form factor, the miniaturization (X, Y), the robustness (connectivity and mechanical reliability), aesthetics (shape, color, ergonomics), RF characteristics (range, communication hole, quality factor, passive and active communication, ...) and the ease of integration and manufacturing (assembly, inserting, cost) of the assembly consisting of the reader 10 and the card 20.
• the invention allows a miniaturization and a simplification of the process for producing a contactless card by moving the antenna into the reader, and This while respecting the constraints of minimum antenna sizes to meet the requirements of RF coupling and range.
• the invention makes it possible to produce various shapes and designs both for the reader and for the card, a factor in both cases of better customer satisfaction.
• the smart card can advantageously abandon its ISO dimensions to take the form factor of the PLUG-ln card used in GSM telephones or even boil down to a simple electronic module.
• the present embodiment attributes to the card chip a noble role of security management and moreover of peripheral controller by deporting the peripherals in an external reader connected to the card by a standard smart card connector. From this moment, the reader in question can receive an ISO format card or a small card regardless of its size.
• the smart card 20 as illustrated is a preferred embodiment. More generally, the micro-module 20 can have different shapes. Thus, the micro-module can be constituted by an integrated circuit which is mounted and wired on a printed circuit or a carrier body of metallic and flexible type.
• the micro-module is then advantageously protected by transfer molding or encapsulation in a protective resin.
• the micro-module is first cut and then inserted into a plastic card body in ISO 7816 format.
• a card with ISO dimensions is produced which is then pre-cut or cut to form a small card identical to that used in mobile phones, known as a SIM card.
• FIG. 2 of a reader conforming to the functional diagram of FIG. 1.
• the housing 11 has a paved shape provided with a central receptacle 11 bis for the card and has a translucent window. 11 bis revealing the card 20.
• FIGS. 3, 3bis and 3ter Another example of a reader is illustrated in FIGS. 3, 3bis and 3ter.
• the antenna 12 is, for example, passive only.
• the reader 10 can then only be composed of an outer shell, of a smart card connector of the type with 2, 6 or 8 contacts, and of an antenna 12 of the wound, engraved or screen-printed type.
• the housing 11 describes a form of ring, which is traversed by the antenna.
• the ring carries an enlarged receptacle 11 bis which accommodates the card 20 and has a translucent window 11 ter revealing the card 20.
• the micro-module 20 advantageously carries elements for external authentication marking. These elements can be indelible laser markings, holograms, signature panels or any other element preventing falsification.
• the form factor of the card is particularly easy to predict different from that of contactless cards known to be reduce to a type card
• the invention provides a solution for easily making and integrating a smart card, a Plug-In card or a micro-module in a low cost reader which is robust, reliable, flexible, miniature and endowed with functionalities.
• the capacities of calculation, data storage, positioning / proximity control, formal identification of the bearer, approval (voluntary reconciliation of the terminal object) of the user allow eReader and the associated card to be a universal vector for a service operator.
• An interaction is implemented between on the one hand the micro-module and its reader and on the other hand a communication terminal by a voluntary bringing together of these two sets.
• the reader equipped with its micro-module simply addresses any communication system which can thus easily communicate with the wearer of the equipped reader.
• the invention finds, for example, an application in physical or logical access to a company: At the moment the reader and its micro-module enters the field of action of a contactless terminal, communication is established and an access system is capable of verifying the physical access rights (gate opening) or logical access rights (access to a server).
• the invention also finds application in physical access to an event: Approaching the reader equipped with an access point at a stadium or any enclosure closed and controlled by means of gates equipped with communication modules to radio frequencies allow instant verification of the rights of the wearer of the reader and the associated micro-module.
• the user can choose an article (drink, newspaper, etc.) from a distributor and open an airlock for access to the article and take the article without ever having introduced any change or card credit in said ATM.
• the equipped reader can transmit the photo of the use so that it can be authenticated by a cashier.
• Approval (discharge) by formal identification using a biometric sensor eg ATMEL
• PIN code personal authentication code
• Such an equipped player makes it possible for example to download music, to listen to it and to play thanks to the mass storage capacity, the display on the screen, the presence of buttons and the inclusion of an audio function.
• the invention is not limited to the context of microprocessor cards. Other standards and form factors than those which apply to contact or contactless microprocessor cards may apply to the invention.
• the invention can be used as a substitute for the microprocessor card and replace it with advantages.
• certain techniques used in microprocessor cards linked to security eg DPA
• the reader becomes the personal device of the wearer. It can be secured (in the sense of a bank terminal) or not depending on the case.
• the reader becomes closely linked to the card.
• the present invention frees the card from its constraints of direct and ergonomic interface by transposing these functions into the reader which is portable and of low cost.

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Theoretical Computer Science (AREA)
• Computer Hardware Design (AREA)
• Microelectronics & Electronic Packaging (AREA)
• Credit Cards Or The Like (AREA)
• Support Of Aerials (AREA)
• Transmitters (AREA)
• Transceivers (AREA)
• Telephone Set Structure (AREA)
• Near-Field Transmission Systems (AREA)
• Telephone Function (AREA)

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• 2005
  • 2005-03-07 EP EP05708724A patent/EP1728199A1/de not_active Ceased
  • 2005-03-07 US US10/593,725 patent/US8011590B2/en active Active
  • 2005-03-07 JP JP2007504494A patent/JP2007531099A/ja active Pending
  • 2005-03-07 WO PCT/IB2005/000630 patent/WO2005093646A1/fr active Application Filing
  • 2005-03-07 KR KR1020067019549A patent/KR101152044B1/ko active IP Right Grant
• 2011
  • 2011-06-10 US US13/158,052 patent/US8245944B2/en active Active

Non-Patent Citations (2)

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