IC card is the English abbreviation of Integrated Circuit Card (Integrated Circuit Card), and is also called smart card, smart card, microchip card, etc. in some countries. A special integrated circuit chip is embedded in a PVC (or ABS, etc.) plastic substrate conforming to the ISO7816 standard, and packaged into a card form similar in appearance to a magnetic card, that is, an IC card is made. Of course, it can also be packaged into special shapes such as buttons, keys, and accessories.

The original idea of the IC card was put forward by the Japanese. In December 1969, Japan's Kunitaka Arimura proposed a method of manufacturing a safe and reliable credit card, which was patented in 1970, which was then called an ID card (IdentificationCard). In 1974, France's Roland Moreno (Roland Moreno) invented a plastic card with an integrated circuit chip and obtained a patent. This is the early IC card. In 1976, the French Bull company developed the world's first IC card. In 1984, French PTT (Posts, Telegraphs and Telephones) used IC cards for telephone cards. Due to the good security and reliability of IC cards, they achieved unexpected success. Subsequently, the joint technical committee of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO, International Standardization Organization) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC, International Electrotechnical Commission) formulated a series of international standards and specifications for it, which greatly promoted the research and development of IC cards.

Compared with the previous identification cards, IC cards have the following characteristics: First, high reliability-IC cards have anti-magnetic, anti-static, anti-mechanical and anti-chemical damage capabilities, information can be stored for more than 100 years, and the number of reads and writes is 10 More than 10,000 times, it can be used for at least 10 years; the second is the safety; the third is the large storage capacity; the fourth is the variety. From a global perspective, the application scope of IC cards is no longer limited to the early communication field, but is widely used in finance, social insurance, transportation and tourism, medical and health, government administration, retail, leisure and entertainment, school management and other field.

In China, with the continuous in-depth development of the golden card project, IC cards have been widely used in many fields and have achieved initial social and economic benefits. In 2000, the number of IC cards issued nationwide was approximately 230 million, of which telecommunications accounted for most of the market share. There are more than 120 million public telephone IC cards, more than 42 million mobile phone SIM cards, and about 60 million other types of IC cards. In 2001, the total shipment of IC cards was approximately 380 million, an increase of 26% over the previous year; the issuance volume was approximately 320 million, an increase of 40% over the previous year. In terms of application areas, more than 170 million public telephone IC cards were issued, 55 million SIM cards were issued, 3.2 million bus IC cards were issued, 14 million cards were issued in the social security field, and 80 million other cards were issued.

Although the issuance of IC cards has maintained a high growth rate, the proportion of market sales in the IT market is still very small. According to CCID statistics, in 2001, China’s computer market sales were about 250.2 billion yuan, while IC card market sales were less than 2.1 billion yuan. The IC card market is not yet a bright spot in China's IT industry, and its role in pulling the IT market is not obvious. On the one hand, this restricts IT companies’ investment in IC card technology, and on the other hand, it also indicates a huge room for development in China’s IC card market. With the increase of government management and support and the improvement of technology research and development level, the IC card market competition pattern will undergo profound changes. As high-end chips, core modules, financial POS machines, and production equipment are controlled by foreign companies, foreign brands have relatively monopolized some market segments. With the launch of the government smart card project, the gradual opening of the mobile communication market, and the optimization of domestic enterprises' technical strength and technological process, the market share of foreign brands is greatly restricted, and domestic brands will have rapid development. Some domestic IC card companies that have grown up from the telecommunications market, relying on strong capital and technical strength, will continue to expand their business in the fields of ID card, finance, social security, and transportation, and directly participate in international competition.

The year 2002 is the next five years, when China's IC card application is developing in depth. The pattern of China's IC card market will inevitably change from disorder to order, and market competition will inevitably change from finite to infinite. The IC card market will gradually mature and enter the era of meager profit. In this situation, the simple issue of cards and the number of new products cannot measure the development level of the IC card industry and the market. The level of market development ultimately depends on the level of IC card application and the social benefits it brings. From the perspective of sustainable development, strengthening industry standards and pushing IC card companies to shift from product and technology to application and service will become an important trend in the development of China's IC card market.

In 1970, the Frenchman Roland Moreno (Roland Moreno) put the programmable IC (Integrated Circuit) chip in the card for the first time, so that the card has more functions. At the time, he described the technology as: cards embedded with self-protecting memory. In this way, the world's first IC card was born.

In the following thirty years, with the development of VLSI technology, computer technology, and information security technology, IC cards have become more diverse and mature, and have been widely used at home and abroad.

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