Roland Moreno, the inventor of the smart card, has died in Paris at the age of 66.
A former journalist, Moreno patented the memory card concept in 1974 and amassed a personal fortune of EUR150 million before the patent expired in 1998.
Moreno founded Innovatron to exploit the concept, which he claimed had come to him in a dream.
The smart chip has since become a ubiquitous element of phone cards, bank cards, and Sim cards worldwide.
At the time of his death, Moreno continued to receive royalties from the use of Innovatron's technology in French transit cards and the Velib bike-sharing scheme in Paris.