JP2003208590A - Manufacturing method of noncontact ic card - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To print overall surfaces even by a printing technique, such as sublimation printing, requiring flatness, by improving the flatness of surfaces of a noncontact IC card. <P>SOLUTION: A manufacturing method of a noncontact IC card forms a card sheet 10 where coil antennas 3 for radio communication and IC chips 4 connected thereto are embedded between a first insulating base 1 and a second insulating base 2, attaches facing decorative sheets 5 on both surfaces, subjects the assembly to thermo-compression bonding to form a secondary card sheet 20, and then punches given regions of the secondary card sheet 20 in a die to separate them apart. The layers of the bonded decorative sheets 5' are made thicker in advance than a conventional dimension, and the surfaces of the decorative sheets 5' are polished on a polishing device to improve the flatness of card surfaces. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing an IC card, and more particularly to a technique effectively applied to a method of manufacturing a non-contact type IC card in which an IC chip and a coil antenna are embedded in an insulating base material. It is a thing.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in an IC card having an IC chip built in a card-shaped insulating base material such as a plastic card,
There are a contact type that transmits information by physical contact to a contact and a non-contact type that transmits information in a non-contact manner with a spatial distance using electromagnetic waves.

This non-contact type IC card is shown in FIG.
As shown in (b), the first insulating base material 1 and the second insulating base material 2
The coil antenna 3 for wireless communication is connected between
The C chip 4 is embedded.

When manufacturing this IC card, a first insulating base material 1 having a large area is used so that the coil antenna 3 is connected to the first insulating base material 1 so as to facilitate mass production. As shown in FIG. 4, a plurality of IC chips 4 are arranged in a matrix.

Next, as shown in FIG. 5A, a first IC chip 4 to which the coil antenna 3 is connected is arranged.
After disposing the second insulating base material 2 on the insulating base material 1, the first insulating base material 1 and the second insulating base material 2 are bonded by thermocompression bonding, and as shown in FIG. A primary card sheet 10 in which an IC chip 4 to which the coil antenna 3 is connected is embedded is formed.

After laminating a predetermined decorative sheet 5 on the surface of the primary card sheet 10, it is sandwiched by a metal plate (not shown) having a mirror surface, and thermocompression-bonded again, and the surface is formed as shown in FIG. 5 (c). A flat secondary card sheet 20 is obtained. When the predetermined area L of the secondary card sheet 20 shown in FIG. 4 is punched into individual pieces, a non-contact IC card as shown in FIGS. 3 (a) and 3 (b) is obtained.

[0007]

However, it is difficult to flatten the surface of the card in the above-mentioned conventional technique for the following reasons. That is, during thermocompression bonding, the coil antenna inside the secondary card sheet 20 and the IC chip connected to the coil antenna act as foreign matter in the insulating base material forming the card, so that the insulating material forming the card is insulated. The flow of the substrate is hindered. As a result, the surface of the secondary card sheet 20 is not completely flat, as shown in FIG.
As shown in, the coil antenna 3 and the IC chip 4 are
Unevenness is created on the surface where the is placed,
The flatness of the card surface is impaired. On the other hand, when printing is to be performed on the card surface, flatness is required on the card surface. For example, in a printing method such as sublimation printing, it is necessary to avoid printing on the uneven surface portion as described above, and there is an unavoidable constraint on the design.

Further, when the secondary card sheet 20 is sandwiched by a metal plate having a mirror surface during the thermocompression bonding, if scratches or dust are adhered to the mirror surface, the scratches or dust are transferred, resulting in a defective appearance product. Become. Therefore, it is necessary to pay sufficient attention to the management of the metal plate.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above problems and to improve the flatness of the card surface in a method for manufacturing a non-contact type IC card, and to a printing method requiring flatness such as sublimation printing. On the other hand, it is another object of the present invention to provide a method for manufacturing a non-contact IC card that enables free design printing on the entire surface.

Another object of the present invention is a method of manufacturing a non-contact type IC card, which is capable of improving the productivity and manufacturing yield of the IC card and reducing the manufacturing cost. To provide.

[0011]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is configured as follows.

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a contactless IC card manufacturing method, wherein a coil antenna for wireless communication and an IC chip connected to the coil antenna are provided between a first insulating base material and a second insulating base material. To form a sheet for a primary card in which is embedded, affix a decorative sheet on the surface layer, and heat-bond to obtain a sheet for a secondary card, and then punch a predetermined area of the sheet for a secondary card using a mold. In the method for producing a non-contact IC card that is separated into individual pieces, the surface of the decorative sheet is polished by a polishing device to improve the flatness of the card surface.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the method for manufacturing a non-contact IC card according to the first aspect, a decorative sheet used for forming the secondary card sheet is ground to a thickness of a standard size of the card. Also, it is characterized in that the lower insulating base material has a thickness that is not exposed.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the method of manufacturing a non-contact IC card according to the second aspect, the primary card sheet and the secondary card are premised on that the surface of the decorative sheet is polished in a subsequent step. It is characterized in that quality control regarding presence or absence of unevenness on the sheet surface is omitted in the step of forming the sheet for use.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the method for manufacturing a non-contact IC card according to any one of the first to third aspects, the layer of the decorative sheet is preliminarily thickened and the makeup before individualization is performed. By polishing the surface of the secondary card sheet provided with the sheet, the flatness of the surface of the card is improved without impairing the standard dimension of the thickness of the card.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the method for manufacturing a non-contact IC card according to any one of the first to third aspects, a layer of the decorative sheet is preliminarily thickened and the surface of the card after singulation is separated. By polishing the decorative sheet, the flatness of the surface of the card can be improved without impairing the standard dimension of the thickness of the card.

<Main Points of the Invention> The main point of the present invention is to form a sheet for a primary card in which an IC chip, to which a coil antenna for wireless communication is connected, is embedded between a first insulating base material and a second insulating base material. Then, a decorative sheet is further attached to the surface layer of the sheet, and the sheet for a secondary card is obtained by thermocompression bonding,
In a method of manufacturing a non-contact type IC card in which a predetermined area of the secondary card sheet is punched into individual pieces by using a mold, a layer of a decorative sheet to be adhered is made thicker than a conventional dimension in advance, The surface of the secondary card sheet or the individualized card is polished by a polishing device. In this polishing, the layer thickness of the outer decorative sheet is
Preferably, the thickness is set so that the insulating base material on the lower side is not exposed even when the card is polished to the standard thickness.

As a result, in the production of a non-contact type IC card, even if a printing technique such as sublimation printing is required, in which flatness of the surface is required without worrying about irregularities on the surface of the card, the entire surface of the card can be covered. Printing can be enabled.

Further, in the method for manufacturing a non-contact IC card, it is assumed that the surface of the card will be polished in a subsequent step, and the quality control in the intermediate step of manufacturing the card is simplified to thereby produce the IC card. And manufacturing yield can be improved and manufacturing cost can be reduced.

The surface of the decorative sheet can be efficiently polished by using a polishing roll, for example. The surface of the decorative sheet may be polished either on the secondary card sheet provided with the decorative sheet before being singulated, or on the card surface after singulated.

[0021]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION The present invention will be described below based on the illustrated embodiments.

The IC card to be manufactured in this embodiment has substantially the same structure as that already described with reference to FIG. 3, and FIG. 3A is a plan view of the IC card.
FIG. 3B is a sectional view taken along the line AA ′ of FIG.

In FIG. 3, 1 is a first insulating base material, 2 is a second insulating base material, 3 is a coil antenna, 4 is an IC chip, 5
Is a decorative sheet. That is, as shown in FIGS. 3 (a) and 3 (b), the IC card of this embodiment has a card-shaped first insulating base material 1 and a second insulating base material 1 such as a plastic card.
A non-contact type I in which a coil antenna 3 for wireless communication and an IC chip 4 connected to the coil antenna 3 are embedded between insulating base materials 2.
It is a C card.

This non-contact type IC card manufacturing method is performed in the same procedure as before except that a decorative sheet having a thickness thicker than conventional is used for the surface layer before the polishing step.

First, in order to facilitate mass production, a first insulating base material 1 having a large area is used, and on the first insulating base material 1,
Coil antenna 3 and IC chip 4 connected to it
Are arranged in a matrix as shown in FIG.

Next, as shown in FIG. 1A, the second insulating base material 2 is placed on the first insulating base material 1 on which the coil antenna 3 and the IC chip 4 connected to the coil antenna 3 are placed. Thereafter, as shown in FIG. 1B, the first insulating base material 1 and the second insulating base material 2 are bonded by thermocompression bonding, and the coil antenna 3 and the IC chip 4 connected thereto are embedded. The primary card sheet 10 is formed. At this time
As exaggeratedly illustrated in (b), due to the presence of the coil antenna 3 and the IC chip 4, the unevenness 10a is formed on the surface on the portion corresponding to the presence of the coil antenna 3 and the IC chip 4. Proceed to.

Next, as shown in FIG. 1 (c), a predetermined decorative sheet 5'for the surface layer, which is thicker than before, is pasted on the surface of the primary card sheet 10 and laminated,
A secondary card sheet 2 which is sandwiched between metal plates (not shown) having a mirror surface, thermocompression-bonded again, and laminated with a thick decorative sheet.
Get 0. For thermocompression bonding of the secondary card sheet 20, a metal plate having a mirror-finished surface is used in order to flatten the surface of the secondary card sheet 20.

In forming the secondary card sheet 20 as well, as shown in an exaggerated manner in FIG. 1C, due to the presence of the coil antenna 3 and the IC chip 4, the unevenness following the unevenness 10a is produced. 20a can be made. Therefore, as the decorative sheet 5 ', one having a thickness larger than that of the conventional one is used. Specifically, in order to eliminate the irregularities 20a on the surface of the secondary card sheet 20, even if the insulating base material 2 is not exposed even if it is polished to a level (level shown by a dotted line D) in a subsequent polishing step. A certain decorative sheet 5'is used. Even when the secondary card sheet 20 is formed, the unevenness 20a is formed on the surface.
Even if it is possible, ignore its existence and proceed to the next step.

Next, as shown in FIG. 1D, the card is ground to the standard thickness (indicated by a dotted line D).
That is, the surface of the decorative sheet 5 is polished by a polishing device to remove the irregularities 20a on the surface of the secondary card sheet 20 to make it flat. At this time, the makeup sheet 5 '
Is sufficiently thick, the lower insulating base material 2 is not exposed even after polishing.

Finally, the punching region L of the secondary card sheet 20 is punched into individual pieces by using a die to obtain a non-contact IC card.

As described above, by placing the step of polishing the surface of the card at the end of the manufacturing process of the non-contact IC card, the sheet in the step of forming the primary card sheet and the secondary card sheet before that is formed. It is possible to omit quality control regarding presence / absence of surface irregularities, simplify quality control in an intermediate step of manufacturing a card, and reduce manufacturing cost.

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of a polishing apparatus for carrying out an actual IC card polishing process.

As shown in FIG. 2, the primary card sheet 1
A decorative sheet 5 ′ thicker than the conventional size is laminated on both sides of 0 and thermocompression bonded to obtain a secondary card sheet 20. Figure 2
In the figure, the state in which irregularities 20a are formed on the surface due to the presence of the coil antenna 3 and the IC chip 4 and the state in which dust 6 is attached and embedded in the surface are exaggeratedly shown.

Next, as shown in FIG. 2, the secondary card sheet 20 is attached to the polishing device, and the polishing roll 8 is used to clean the surface of the decorative sheet 5'to the standard thickness of the card (dotted line D). By polishing, the irregularities 20a on the surface of the secondary card sheet and the transfer of scratches and dust 6 due to the coil antenna 3 and the IC chip 4 are removed.

In the above embodiment, the case of using the polishing roll 8 is shown as an example of the polishing method, but the polishing method is not limited to this, and any known polishing means that can be applied is the subject of the present application. sell. Further, the method of attaching the secondary card sheet 20 to the polishing device can be easily performed by clamping a portion other than the region L to be singulated into the non-contact IC card.

In the above embodiment, the surface of the secondary card sheet 20 before being singulated is polished to improve the flatness of the card surface without impairing the standard dimension of the card thickness. However, by polishing the surface of the individualized card, the flatness of the surface of the card can be improved without impairing the standard dimension of the thickness of the card.

[0037]

As described above, according to the present invention, a sheet for a primary card in which a coil antenna for wireless communication and an IC chip connected to the coil antenna for wireless communication are embedded between a first insulating base material and a second insulating base material. And then attach the surface decorative sheet,
In the method for producing a non-contact IC card, which comprises heat-bonding a secondary card sheet to obtain a secondary card sheet, and then punching out predetermined regions of the secondary card sheet into individual pieces using a die, The surface of the secondary card sheet before singulation or the surface of the card after singulation is polished by a polishing device to improve the flatness of the card surface. For this reason,
It is possible to print on the entire surface of the card without paying attention to the irregularities on the surface of the card, even for a printing method such as sublimation printing which requires flatness of the surface.

According to another feature of the present invention, the thickness of the outer decorative sheet is such that the lower insulating base material is not exposed even when the layer thickness of the outer decorative sheet reaches the standard thickness of the card. In order to simplify quality control in the intermediate step of manufacturing a card, assuming that the surface is polished in a later step, the productivity and the manufacturing yield of the IC card are increased in the manufacturing of the non-contact type IC card. It is possible to improve and reduce the manufacturing cost.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic view showing a method for manufacturing a non-contact IC card according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic view showing a polishing step of the method for manufacturing a non-contact IC card according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram showing a schematic configuration of a non-contact IC card according to the present invention, (a) is a plan view of the IC card,
(B) is sectional drawing in the AA 'line of (a).

FIG. 4 is a plan view showing a configuration of a card sheet before individualization of the non-contact IC card according to the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a schematic view showing a conventional non-contact IC card manufacturing method.

[Explanation of symbols]

1st insulating base material 2 Second insulating base material 3 coil antenna 4 IC chip 5, 5'decorative sheet 8 polishing rolls 10 Primary Card Sheet 20 Secondary Card Sheet

   ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued front page    (72) Inventor Takamitsu Nakabayashi             1-6-1, Otemachi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo             Standing Wire Co., Ltd. F-term (reference) 2C005 MA13 MA14 MA18 MA19 NA08                       NB03 PA03 PA21 RA04 RA09                       RA10                 3C049 AA01 CA01                 5B035 AA00 BA03 BA05 BB09 CA01                       CA23

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A primary card sheet in which a coil antenna for wireless communication and an IC chip connected to the coil antenna for wireless communication are embedded is formed between a first insulating base material and a second insulating base material to form a surface decorative sheet. A method for producing a non-contact IC card, which comprises sticking and thermocompression-bonding to obtain a secondary card sheet, and then punching out a predetermined area of the secondary card sheet into individual pieces using a mold, wherein A non-contact IC characterized in that the surface of a sheet is polished by a polishing device to improve the flatness of the card surface.
Card manufacturing method. 2. The non-contact IC card manufacturing method according to claim 1, wherein the decorative sheet used for forming the secondary card sheet comprises:
A method for manufacturing a non-contact IC card, characterized in that the insulating base material on the lower side is not exposed even when the card is polished to a standard thickness. 3. The method for manufacturing a non-contact IC card according to claim 2, wherein the primary card sheet and the secondary card sheet are formed on the assumption that the surface of the decorative sheet is polished in a subsequent step. Non-contact IC characterized by omitting quality control regarding presence or absence of unevenness on the sheet surface in the step of
Card manufacturing method. 4. The non-contact type I according to claim 1.
In the method for producing a C card, the thickness of the decorative sheet is made thick in advance, and the surface of the secondary card sheet provided with the decorative sheet before being singulated is polished to obtain a card thickness standard. A method for manufacturing a non-contact IC card, characterized in that the flatness of the surface of the card is improved without impairing the dimensions. 5. The non-contact type I according to claim 1.
In the method for producing a C card, the layer of the decorative sheet is preliminarily thickened, and the decorative sheet on the surface of the card after being diced is polished to thereby maintain the surface of the card without impairing the standard dimension of the thickness of the card. Non-contact IC characterized by improving the flatness of
Card manufacturing method.