Itt Corporation

Itt Manufacturing Enterprises, Inc.

Anthony John Knights

Gary C Bethurum

Jay Brian Betker

An IC card is provided, of the type that has a cardbus shield (30) with a shield plate (132) mounted on the top of a front connector (12) and with shield tails (36) extending rearwardly and downwardly to secondary ground traces (50) on a circuit board (34), wherein the IC card includes a dielectric cardbus bridge with a crosspiece (100). The crosspiece supports the middle (104) of the front end (102) of the sheet metal top cover so it is held securely out of contact with the cardbus shield but lies above at least portions of the contact tails (130) that extend from the rear of the front connector to signal traces on the circuit board. The crosspiece is supported to lie over the circuit board closely behind the rear end (136) of the shield plate, with the crosspiece having a top cover support surface (112) on which the front end of the cover middle lies. The bridge has slots (110) that pass the shield tails and has an upward projection (152) at its front end that forms a rearwardly-facing shoulder (116) to abut the front edge of the middle of the top cover. The cardbus bridge has laterally opposite sides forming mounts (72, 74) that are each fixed to a corresponding side of the circuit board and to the corresponding side of the front connector housing to hold these parts together and to support the top and bottom sheet metal cover parts (52, 54).

Cardbus Bridge

Apparatus is described for coupling the contact pads (116, FIG. 4) of a smart card (30) to a computer device (10) that has a slot (12) for receiving an IC card, which provides a small but reliable card receiver to be stored outside the computer device. The apparatus includes an adaptor (80) with a front end forming a plug (84) that is mateable to the receptacle (82) at the rear of a standard IC card (14) of the type that has a rear I/O (input/output) connector. The adaptor has a card receiver (94) with a slot (100) that receives a smart card and has terminals (114) that engage contact pads of the smart card, with the terminals connected to contacts (92) of the adaptor plug. The card receiver is wider than the IC card for reliably receiving the card. The IC card can be stored in the IC card slot of the computer device, while only a relatively small adaptor is stored outside the IC card slot.

Smart card computer adaptor

A cover assembly for an IC card includes top and bottom covers (52, 54) with overlapping side rails (70, 80). At each side of the card, a downwardly-extending top side rail (70) lies facewise adjacent to an upwardly extending bottom side rail (80), and a layer (90) of solder is sandwiched between the rails and is bonded to each of them. The solder layer extends along most of the height of each cover side, so the two rails and the solder layer between them serve as a single rigid beam. The cover assembly can be, instead, spot welded at a plurality of locations at each side of the card, to weld the two rails facewise together.

Growing community of inventors

Irvine, CA, United States of America

Anthony John Knights