Types of Contactless Cards

What is a smart card?

Smart cards are typically small ID sized devices which contain a microprocessor chip. They function like a small personal computer in that they can store, manipulate and transmit data. The data they process is stored in sectors allocated to different applications. Each sector is secured by a key to prevent applications from interfering with each other's data.

Contact vs contactless

Smart cards come in two forms:

• Contact smart cards: operate like magnetic stripe cards. Thery require insertion or contact with a reader to get information.
• Contactless smart cards: are read when they are in close proximity or presented near a reader. Also known as proximity cards, contactless smart cards can store a 100 times more data than traditional proximity cards. Advanced types of cards may contain two or more types of smart card technology. For example, a single card may work both with a 125KHz reader and a MIFARE reader. These types allow working simultaneously with two different systems which are not necessarily interconnected.

Market Standards

There are three standards used for access control systems:

• 125KHz: is a de facto industry standard that has a huge install base. It is not governed by ISO standards and sometimes requires cards and readers to be bought from the same manufacturer. Cards that use these standard are known as standard proximity cards or EM cards.
• ISO 14443: is one of a series of standards which described proximity systems designed to operate at close range (i.e. 0 to 10cm or about 0 to 4 inches). Proximity systems have long been used in employee access applications and other restricted areas.
• ISO 15963: is a standard for vicinity systems operating at up to 1m or about 3.3 feet. Vicinity systems typically have slower data transmission speeds and have been used in tollbooths and parking applications.

All ISO compliant cards are provided with a unique identifier known as its UID which is open and available to all readers. Reading the UID is similar to reading the serial number from a traditional proximity card.

Technologies

The above standards only provide guidelines on how contact and contacless technology should work. There are several ways of doing the same thing and thus several manufacturers and technologies have emerged. The list below contains some of the more popular technologies today.

• MIFARE: is a 13.56MHz contactless technology based on ISO 14443 developed by Philips. Cards of this kind have capacities that go up to 32Kbits.
• DESFire: is a high-end chipset from the MIFARE family. It is the first Government Smart Card Interoperability Specification (GSC-IS) compliant card.M
• MIFARE DESFire EV1: is a contactless technology which is compliant to all 4 levels of ISO 14443A and uses ISO 7816-4 commands. It can hold up to 28 different applications and store up to 32 files per application
• my-d: is a 13.56MHz technology develiped by Infineon Technologies. It uses advanced security algorithms and is a popular ISO 15693 technology.
• iCLASS: is a proprietary ISO 15963 compliant 13.56MHz contactless technology developed by HID.

References

• "Basic Overview of Smart Card Technology." XceedID, Print.