JPH05274497A - Portable storage medium - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent static electricity applied to one terminal from discharging to other terminals except a zero-voltage terminal and to prevent an IC chip from being destroyed owing to the static electricity by making the zero-voltage terminal surround other terminals. CONSTITUTION:At the contact part 3 of the IC card, an operating voltage supply terminal 31, a reset signal supply terminal 32, an operation clock supply terminal 33, a write voltage supply terminal 35, and a data transmission terminal 36 are all surrounded with the zero-voltage terminal 34. Namely, >=2 terminals among the terminals other than the zero-voltage terminal 34 are not present adjacently to each other. Consequently, even if the static electricity is applied to one of the terminals other than the zero-voltage terminal 34 and further transfers from this terminal to other terminals, the static electricity is discharged to the zero-voltage terminal 34 without fail. The damage that the IC chip undergoes is reduced.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

 [Object of the Invention]

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a portable storage medium such as an IC card.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional portable storage medium will be described by taking an IC card as an example.
IC chip with built-in memory such as EPROM
A metal contact part 11 (external connection terminal) for electrically connecting to an external processing device is provided at a position on the surface of the IC card which is embedded in a resin card base and corresponds to the IC chip. ing. Here, as seen in FIG. 4, the contact portion 10 has, for example, six terminals, each of which has a terminal 11 for inputting a circuit voltage,
Terminal 12 for reset signal input, terminal 13 for clock signal input, terminal 14 for zero voltage (terminal for ground), terminal 1 for program supply voltage input
5, a terminal 16 for data input / output. Each of these terminals exists with a gap of about 0.1 mm.

Incidentally, the IC card 1 may be statically charged in some way during use. Here, for example, when static electricity is applied between the terminal 15 for inputting the program supply voltage of the contact part 10 and the terminal 14 for zero voltage, data input / output provided adjacently is provided. There is a fear that static electricity may fly to the terminal 16 and the IC chip may be destroyed.

[0004]

As described above, in the conventional portable storage medium, when static electricity is applied to a terminal which constitutes a contact portion for electrically connecting to an external device, it is adjacent to the terminal. There is a problem in that static electricity is spread to terminals other than the existing zero-voltage terminal, which adversely affects the IC chip.

In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, the present invention adopts a structure in which a zero voltage terminal surrounds each of the other terminals so that static electricity applied to a certain terminal is scattered to terminals other than the zero voltage terminal. It is an object of the present invention to provide a portable storage medium that prevents such a situation and less likely that the IC chip is damaged by static electricity. [Constitution of Invention]

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention has a plurality of metal terminals mounted on a substrate on which electronic components are mounted and for making electrical contact with an external device. In the portable storage medium consisting of, at least one of the plurality of terminals is a ground terminal,
The terminals other than the grounding terminal among the plurality of terminals are arranged so as to be adjacent to only the grounding terminal.

[0007]

Each terminal of the contact portion of the portable storage medium (terminal for inputting circuit voltage, terminal for inputting reset signal, terminal for inputting clock signal, terminal for inputting program supply voltage, data input / output The terminal for zero voltage is surrounded by a terminal for zero voltage, so that even if static electricity is applied to the terminal, the static electricity will surely drop to the terminal for zero voltage. I no longer fly to the terminal.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment in which the portable storage medium of the present invention is applied to an IC card will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

First, FIG. 1 shows an external view of the surface of an IC card 1 of this embodiment. The main body of the IC card 1 is made of resin,
A magnetic stripe 2 for writing and reading magnetic information by an MS reader / writer (not shown) on the surface and a metal for electrically transferring IC data by electrically contacting an IC reader / writer (not shown) Is provided with the contact part 3. The contact portion 3 will be described in detail later. Below the contact portion 3, an IC chip 4 shown by a broken line is embedded. This I
The C chip 4 has a built-in nonvolatile memory such as an EEPROM and a control CPU.

Next, an enlarged view of the contact portion 3 is shown in FIG. The contact portion 3 is composed of, for example, six terminals, an operating voltage supply terminal (Vcc) 31 for supplying an operating voltage to the CPU in the card, and a CPU in the card.
A reset signal supply terminal (RST) 32 for supplying a reset signal to the CPU, an operation clock supply terminal (CLK) 33 for supplying a clock pulse to the CPU in the card,
Zero voltage terminal (GND) 34 for ground, write voltage supply terminal (Vpp) 35 for supplying a voltage necessary for writing IC data to the memory, bidirectional data transmission terminal for inputting / outputting IC data. (I / O) 36. Here, the zero voltage terminal 34 is extremely larger than the other terminals, and the size of the zero voltage terminal 34 depends on the contact portion 3.
Equal to the size of. The zero voltage terminal 34 is provided with five rectangular openings 5, and terminals other than the zero voltage terminal 34 (operating voltage supply terminal 31, reset signal supply terminal 32, operation clock supply terminal) are provided in each opening 5. 33, a write voltage supply terminal 35, and a data transmission terminal 36) are located. The terminals other than the zero voltage terminal 34 have a rectangular shape slightly smaller than the size of the opening 5 of the zero voltage terminal 34, and each terminal does not come into contact with any other terminal.

That is, in the contact portion 3 of the IC card of the present embodiment, the operation voltage supply terminal 31, the reset signal supply terminal 32, the operation clock supply terminal 33, the write voltage supply terminal 35, and the data transmission terminal 36 are connected. All of them are surrounded by the zero voltage terminal 34, and two or more terminals out of the terminals other than the zero voltage terminal 34 do not exist adjacent to each other. As a result, when static electricity is applied to a terminal other than the zero-voltage terminal 34 of the contact portion 3 and the static electricity is discharged from this terminal, the discharged static electricity always drops to the zero-voltage terminal 34, and the IC chip is damaged. Is less.

As described in detail above, in the IC card of this embodiment, since the terminals other than the zero voltage terminal 34 are surrounded by the zero voltage terminal 34, static electricity is applied to a certain terminal and static electricity is applied from this terminal to the other terminals. Even if is blown, the static electricity always drops on the zero voltage terminal 34. Therefore, I
Damage to the IC chip when static electricity is applied to the C card can be minimized. In this embodiment, the shape of the opening 5 on the zero voltage terminal 34 and the shape of the terminals other than the zero voltage terminal 34 are rectangular, but the shape is not limited to this. In addition, the zero voltage terminal 34
Although the terminals other than the zero voltage terminal 34 are surrounded by the zero voltage terminal 34, as long as the terminals other than the zero voltage terminal 34 are isolated from each other by the zero voltage terminal 34 as shown in FIG. The effect can be obtained.

[0013]

As described above, according to the present invention, even if static electricity is applied to the terminal of the contact portion and is discharged from this terminal to another terminal, the static electricity is always discharged to the zero voltage terminal for grounding. A portable storage medium that is less likely to damage an IC chip due to static electricity can be provided.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an external view of an IC card of this embodiment.

FIG. 2 is an enlarged view of a contact portion of the IC card of this embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an enlarged view of a contact portion of a conventional IC card.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... IC card 3 ... Contact part 31 ... Operating voltage supply terminal 32 ... Reset signal supply terminal 33 ... Operation clock supply terminal 34 ... Zero voltage terminal 35 ... Write voltage supply terminal 36 ... Data transmission terminal

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A portable storage medium having a plurality of metal terminals mounted on a substrate on which electronic components are mounted and electrically contacting an external device, wherein at least one of the plurality of terminals is provided. One is a grounding terminal, and a terminal other than the grounding terminal among the plurality of terminals is arranged so as to be adjacent to only the grounding terminal. 2. A portable storage medium having a plurality of metal terminals mounted on a substrate on which electronic components are mounted and electrically contacting an external device, wherein at least one of the plurality of terminals is provided. One is a grounding terminal, and the portable storage medium is arranged so that no two terminals of the plurality of terminals other than the grounding terminal are adjacent to each other.