A lead frame for assembling a smart card is formed with a substrate having first and second opposing major surfaces. A die receiving area is formed in the first major surface of the substrate and surrounded by conductive vias. A conductive coating is formed on the second major surface of the substrate and patterned to form electrical contact pads over the conductive vias. A conductive trace is formed on the first major surface of the substrate. The conductive trace extends between at least two adjacent vias and partially surrounds the at least two adjacent conductive vias, thereby forming a gap in the portion of the trace that surrounds the vias. An electrical connection between an integrated circuit chip and the conductive via extends over the gap. The gap prevents the electrical connection from inadvertently contacting the conductive trace.

To provide an electric circuit, a communication device, and a method for manufacturing the electric circuit to maintain or improve connection reliability while suppressing increase in manufacturing costs. The electric circuit includes a connecting unit that electrically connects an antenna coil and an integrated circuit (IC) chip. The connecting unit includes a first partial connecting unit that is electrically connected to the antenna coil, and a second partial connecting unit that is electrically connected to the first partial connecting unit and the IC chip to be arranged and that is made of a material different from a material of the first partial connecting unit.

A lead frame for assembling a smart card is formed with a substrate having first and second opposing major surfaces. A die receiving area is formed in the first major surface of the substrate and surrounded by conductive vias. A conductive coating is formed on the second major surface of the substrate and patterned to form electrical contact pads over the conductive vias. A conductive trace is formed on the first major surface of the substrate. The conductive trace extends between at least two adjacent vias and partially surrounds the at least two adjacent conductive vias, thereby forming a gap in the portion of the trace that surrounds the vias. An electrical connection between an integrated circuit chip and the conductive via extends over the gap. The gap prevents the electrical connection from inadvertently contacting the conductive trace.

The invention relates to a method for fabricating chip cards. According to this method, an antenna and a chip card module are provided. This chip card module includes a dielectric substrate and conducting tracks at least on a face of this substrate. A connection unit is used to establish a connection between the antenna and conducting tracks of the module. The invention also relates to a method for fabricating an antenna support including such a connection unit. The invention also relates to a chip card and an antenna support which are obtained by the aforementioned methods.

A metal smartcard (SC) having a transponder chip module (TCM) with a module antenna (MA), and a card body (CB) comprising two discontinuous metal layers (ML), each layer having a slit (S) overlapping the module antenna, the slits being oriented differently than one another. One metal layer can be a front card body (FCB, CF1), and the other layer may be a rear card body (RCB, CF2) having a magnetic stripe (MS) and a signature panel (SP).

A method of manufacturing a smartcard may include providing a flexible smartcard circuit, forming conductive extension members on and extend away from the flexible circuit from a high melting point solder material, and laminating the flexible circuit to form a smartcard body. A cavity is then milled in the smartcard body to expose the ends of the extension members, and a contact pad is inserted into the cavity and electrically connected to extension members using a low melting temperature tin-bismuth solder using ultrasonically soldering, so as to avoid heat damage to the card body.

Disclosed is an electronic document, a body of which includes an inlay, a part of which forms a spotface of a cavity, and which includes a connection land formed on the part forming the spotface, and a module of which includes an electrical circuit that includes both a first subcircuit configured to electrically connect a port of a chip to the connection land and a second subcircuit configured to electrically connect the connection land to an external electrical contact land of a carrier of the module.

The invention relates to a method for producing a chip card module. According to this method, the following are produced: a module with a substrate having contacts and an electronic chip connected to at least some contacts; an antenna on a carrier, this antenna including two ends, each equipped with a connection land; a cavity in at least one layer of the card at least partially covering the carrier, in order to house the module and to expose the connection lands of the antenna; a first end of a wire is connected directly to a connection pad of the chip, and another portion is connected directly to a connection land of the antenna, after having inserted the module into the cavity.

A near-field communication tag includes a logic section that responds to a radio-frequency identification interrogation signal. An elongated, printed, interconnect has a first end coupled to the integrated circuit. An antenna is on a second end of the interconnect. The antenna is electrically coupled to the conductive lines of the interconnect and operable to send and receive wireless signals of the radio-frequency identification interrogation and communicate the wireless signals with the integrated circuit via the interconnect.

Various embodiments of RFID switch devices are disclosed herein. Such RFID switch devices advantageously enable manual activation/deactivation of the RF module. The RFID switch device may include a RF module with an integrated circuit adapted to ohmically connect to a substantially coplanar conductive trace pattern, as well as booster antenna for extending the operational range of the RFID device. The operational range of the RFID switch device may be extended when a region of the booster antenna overlaps a region of the conductive trace pattern on the RF module via inductive or capacitive coupling. The RFID switch device may further include a visual indicator displaying a first color if the RFID switch device is in an active state and/or a second color if the RFID switch device is in an inactive state.