| Abstract | Since the concept of using credit card sized plastic card with integrated chip was proposed in early 1970, total chip card IC sales volume has been growing at an annual rate of over 30%. This is one of the fastest growing industries in electronics and has led to a market volume of 360 million devices in 1994, valued at US$220 million. Although this only accounts to less than 1% of the total semiconductor market, the potential users in various financial sectors will mark a new era for semiconductor industries. The associated technologies, such as input and output peripherals, data processing mainframe units and card embedded software will be benefited by this new chip card development. |
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