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Some smart cards or active radio frequency identification (RF-ID) tags are manufactured through high temperature (130ºC to 150ºC), high pressure (~200 N/cm²) lamination processes. Batteries used in these products have to survive these conditions. Most conventional batteries will fail in these applications because of degassing and degradation of organic content inside of the battery. Excellatron's thin film batteries have been successfully laminated inside of smart cards and retained their capacity and cyclability. Smart cards promise to become combination ATM/debit/credit cards, portable healthcare files, airline tickets and frequent flier cards. They can also be used to authorize stock trades, open doors to the office, check out books at the library, store digital cash to pay for subway rides, parking meters and candy at vending machines, and even as car and hotel key devices. Unlike the current cards used by one organization for only a few simple functions, use of multi-function smart cards by more than one organization significantly increases the complexity. This complexity puts additional demands on the microchip in the card and commensurately increases the power required to securely and reliably perform these tasks.
While there is a huge market for smart cards that are more powerful versions of the existing magnetic strip cards carried by everyone, there is also emerging a new class of specialty smart cards used in security applications. These high-end cards are used to secure expensive goods, control access to secure physical and virtual space, or validate authority to access intellectual property such as music, television programs and feature motion pictures. Cards that include on-chip biometric fingerprint sensors are under investigation for increased security and reliability.
Conventional batteries, including liquid and polymer lithium ion batteries, cannot be used in this application because they cannot be processed at high temperature (> 130ºC), high pressure (> 200 N/cm²) conditions that are required for smart card production, especially when in a charged state. There are also safety concerns related to the use of traditional batteries because of potential gas or even liquid release in these batteries. Excellatron batteries have survived all card lamination conditions safely, and have been successfully laminated into smart cards with no loss in capacity and cycle life. |
