Chip card expert Sagem Orga is one of the largest providers in the international “smart card” sector. Thanks to tesa, the “heart” of the card stays put even under extreme conditions.

Ready for use all over the worlds: In Flintbek, northern Germany, millions of smart cards come off the production lines year after year.

With glimmers of flashing gold, the chips in Sagem Orga’s module production run through the production systems. Each chip contains a tiny microcomputer that – tightly adhered to the body of the card – can fit into even the slimmest wallet.

On a worldwide basis, the average person has 2.6 of these plastic cards with integrated circuitry. They are used as phone cards, for banking transactions, for scanning at the doctor’s office, and for identification purposes. By 2010, experts estimate that the number of cards per person will increase to up to five. Because these handy “service providers” have to be replaced regularly, it is no surprise that the production lines in the North German city of Flintbek turn out many millions of chip cards every year.

Modern micro-chip technologies and secure chip bonding are important for the data security of smart-cards

Security for sensitive data

Starting with its first use as a telephone card back in 1984, smart cards have met with unmatched success. Their development has been closely connected with the Sagem Orga company, which now produces high-performance microprocessor cards with a memory capacity of up to 256 Megabytes. By way of comparison, the first Commodore personal computer, manufactured in 1982, could manage only 64 kilobytes – a data quantity that is now standard on every pre-paid cell phone card with a chip of just 2.8 x 3.3 Millimeters in size. Comprising about 70 percent of its sales, Sagem Orga’s main business lies in the telecommunications segment.

Other sectors utilizing the cards include banking, health care, and identification: areas that clearly show the kind of sensitive data that manufacturers of smart cards have to handle. “Security is a major issue for our customers. One way we ensure security is by counterfeit-proofing the bodies of the cards, and another is by using highly secure operating systems,” reports Jan-Henning Barner, responsible for the Process & Card Engineering division at Sagem Orga. He goes on to clarify the important role tesa plays in this process: “The adhesive tape has to bind two completely different components together. Even under extreme conditions, the chip must never be allowed to fall out.” Products undergo regular testing to prove that tesa still meets these requirements.