Patent ID: 7019981

Claim:
A chip card comprising: a chip card body having a first cavity and a second cavity, the second cavity being recessed into a base of the first cavity, so that the first cavity extends laterally beyond the second cavity and a base surface of the first cavity surrounds the second cavity; a carrier substrate secured to the chip card body and arranged in the first cavity and having an upper surface contact for reading the chip card on its top side and a lower surface contact on its underside, which are electrically connected to one another by contact-hole lines, which run through the carrier substrate, the contact-hole lines passing through both the lower surface contacts and the upper surface contacts and being arranged in a region of the first cavity which extends laterally outside the second cavity, and the contact-hole lines being covered at the base of the first cavity; a semiconductor chip connected to the lower surface contacts of the carrier substrate by electrical connections; and a protective covering layer, which extends from the base of the first cavity into an interior of the second cavity and covers a region of the semiconductor chip, securing the carrier substrate, on its underside, to the base surface of the first cavity; wherein the second cavity encloses a volume of air and wherein the protective covering layer shields the semiconductor chip from at least most of the volume of air.