Payment card manufacturing technology

Abstract

A payment card manufacturing process glues a thin battery and an autonomously reprogrammable magnetic device to the inside surface of one of two outer front and rear laminate sheets. The magnetic device is pressed through a precisely cut rectangular hole provided for it in the rear laminate sheet, and is sealed with a gasket bead. Such magnetic device is critically placed flush in a magnetic stripe area, and the end gaps are such that they will minimize adverse magnetic transitions seen by a reader between the magnetic stripe field and the autonomously reprogrammable magnetic device. The surfaces of the battery, electronics, and laminate sheets, are plasma treated to promote adhesion. These are then all sandwiched together inside a heated mold that is tilted or vibrated just before a two-part polyurethane is injected. Each of the two polyurethane parts is temperature adjusted to match viscosities and thus improve mixing. The liquid polyurethane is injected through a nozzle and manifold to fill all the voids between the laminate sheets, and air escapes or is vacuumed out the top edge of the mold. The polyurethane sets quickly and sheets of sixteen or more payment cards can then be de-molded and singulated.