Feasibility study of PV-powered smart cards for improved security

Lightricity正在寻求将其独特的高效室内光伏（PV）技术应用于下一代智能卡的安全功能。在供电智能卡行业中，当前的焦点是引入包括指纹传感器的生物识别卡。这些非接触式卡通常通过在非常接近的几秒钟内从读卡器设备收集RF能量来供电。这有助于在销售点解决安全交易，从而减少欺诈性使用。然而，在大多数主要市场中，超过75%的欺诈交易都是“无卡交易”，例如互联网和电话购物，因此读卡器无法为智能卡及其安全功能提供动力。Lightricity将研究其技术与智能卡严格的标准化规格的兼容性，智能卡用例场景和已建立的制造流程的挑战。该项目还将评估光伏能源收集可以为发行人和客户带来的实际利益。据信，指纹传感器和微型动态更新显示器都有很大的潜力为CVV号码供电，从而为主要的欺诈挑战带来增强的安全功能。在电池解决方案已被证明不可接受和其他光伏解决方案不够有效或与卡制造兼容的情况下，相信Lightricity的光伏技术具有强大的潜力。它已经被证明比其他更常用的PV技术在室内的效率高出6倍，从而能够使用几mm2量级的更小的PV模块实现更耗电的应用。它也非常薄，具有进一步降低的潜力，能够承受热层压制造工艺中典型的高温。动力智能卡行业高度集中，并通过一系列合作伙伴关系组织起来。新技术革新的开发和采用集中在这些公司中相对较少的几家。为了详细了解具体的技术和商业挑战以及潜在的解决方案，并获得开发合作伙伴的认可，Lightricity将通过该项目与领导下一代智能卡开发的主要欧洲研发中心合作。主要分布在法国和德国。

Lightricity is seeking to apply its unique highly efficient indoor photovoltaic (PV) technology to powering security features on the next generation of smart cards. There is a current focus in the powered smart card industry on introducing biometric cards which include fingerprint sensors. These contactless cards are typically powered by harvesting RF energy from the card reader device when in very close proximity for a few seconds. This helps to address secure transaction at point of sale thus reducing fraudulent usage. However, in most major markets more than 75% of fraudulent transactions are of the 'card-not-present' variety e.g. internet and telephone purchases, so a card reader is not available to power the card and its security features.Lightricity will investigate the compatibility of its technology with the demanding standardised specifications of smart cards, the smart card use-case scenarios and the challenges of the established manufacturing processes. The project will also evaluate the practical benefits PV energy harvesting can bring for both the issuer and the customer. It is believed that there is significant potential to power both fingerprint sensors and miniature dynamically updatable displays for CVV numbers thus bringing the enhanced security features to the main fraud challenges too. Where battery solutions have proven unacceptable and other PV solutions insufficiently efficient or compatible with card manufacturing it is believed that Lightricity's PV technology has strong potential. It has already been demonstrated to be up to 6x more efficient indoors than other more commonly used PV technologies enabling more power-hungry applications with much smaller PV modules of the order of a few mm2\. It is also very thin with potential for further reduction and is able to withstand high temperatures typical of hot lamination manufacturing processes.The powered smart card industry is highly concentrated and organised in a series of partnerships. Development and adoption of new technical innovations is concentrated in a relatively small number of these companies. In order to understand, in detail, the specific technical and commercial challenges and potential solutions and to gain acceptance as a development partner Lightricity will, through this project, engage with the key European R&D Centres that are leading next generation smart card developments. These are predominantly found in France and Germany.