Patent 6942156 was granted and assigned to Sony on September, 2005 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
In an IC card, an IC module constructed by mounting an IC chip and an antenna circuit on a substrate is sandwiched between at least a pair of exterior films. The IC chip is sealed with resin on its outside and reinforced by a reinforcement material having a substantially circular shape with a diameter greater than a longest dimension value of the IC chip. The height variation amount of the shape of the reinforcement material on a surface thereof is within a range of 20 μm or less. The reliability of the IC chip is ensured while the outer appearance of the card and print characteristic are not degraded.