News - EMV Software Chip Writer

Activating and deactivating EMV application

Activating the smart card EMV application is the final operation in the smart card manufacturing process. It involves setting checkboxes in memory that prohibit any further changes to this memory area, except for changes that are performed under the direct control of this application. These actions are an integral part of the security process. This is usually the last act before the process of transferring the smart card to its owner, and in some cases, activation may actually be performed after the card has passed into the owner’s...

Smart Card Personalization

Personalization of the card is a necessary step in preparing the card for its transfer to the owner. The term “personalization” in the broadest sense of the word means that all the data that is intended for a specific person or a specific card is entered into the smart card. The personalization procedure involves writing various information to the chip’s memory. It is also accompanied by a PIN code written to the card, which the owner can then use to confirm the card’s authenticity. According to the method of...

Features of the production of smart card cases

Contactless smart cards use a wireless communication mechanism between the card and the reader. The contactless card contains a built-in chip, without requiring a contact pad on its front surface. Instead, a winding is built into the card body as an antenna. The energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation is transmitted by the reader antenna and received by the card antenna. The resulting energy is small, but sufficient to power the integrated chip in the card. For the relatively low frequencies used for most modern contactless smart...

EMV Software development of smart card

The design of the chip and the software development of smart card According to ISO 10202-1, the first phase of the smart card lifecycle can be divided into two parts. The first of these parts covers the process of semiconductor manufacturing of the microcontroller and the generation of the smart card operating system, while the second part is devoted to the entire production technology of the card body. The production of the microcontroller chip and the generation of the smart card operating system are associated with the following...

Lifecycle of EMV smart cards

Other specifications and standards for smart cards The international standards ISO 7816, ISO/IEC 14443, ISO/IEC 15633 and ISO / IEC 10373 are undoubtedly the most important for general-purpose smart cards. In addition to the above-mentioned basic standards for general-purpose smart cards, there are also standards that define the use of smart cards in certain areas, such as healthcare, transportation, banking, e-commerce, and identification. Since a smart card is always only a part of an information technology, it is subject to a wide range of...

Remote communication for EMV Software

The term “remote-connected cards” defines smart cards that transmit data to a terminal at a distance of a few centimeters to about one meter. This characteristic of smart cards is of great interest for applications in which data should be exchanged between the card and the terminal without the mandatory requirement for the user to pick up the card and insert it into the terminal. Such applications are used for access control, identification of vehicles and luggage, such as electronic driver’s licenses, airline tickets, etc....

Production of the chip and the generation of OS smart card

Smart Card Application Layer Protocols The ISO/IEC 7816-4 standard defines the functions directly applied by smart card applications. It describes two classes of functions: a set of functions covering the application programming interface (API) through which application programs in the channel on the reader side can access files and information in these files inside the file system. The file system is considered as a fully defined hierarchical structure;security features that can be applied to restrict access to card application programs or...

Link layer protocols for smart cards

For data exchange between the reader and the card, the ISO 7816-3 standard defines two link layer protocols: Protocol T = 0;Protocol T = 1. The T = 0 protocol is an asynchronous one-command-response protocol. When the card receives a command from the reader, it performs the requested operations and sends back to the reader the response corresponding to this command. After that, the reader can send the next command to the card at any time it needs. In this protocol, there is no strict time binding between the commands sent sequentially by the...

Standards for smart cards

To date, three main approaches to the standardization of smart cards have been identified: international standards;de facto standards from consortia;patents and intellectual property copyrights. The predecessors of the modern smart card a plastic credit card, is used as a means of identification for payment transactions. A credit card is a means of confirming the identity and financial status issued by the issuer. As the use of credit cards became convenient and widespread, the need to ensure the compatibility of cards of different issuers...

Java cards for EMV Software

Implementation of Java technology in smart cards According to the Java Card specification, a smart card has a Java virtual machine that is activated when the card is finished and deactivated at the end of the card’s life cycle. There are several classes that are relatively easy to build a file tree that conforms to the ISO/IEC 7816-4 specification. The main computing components of a smart card are: applets containing a file tree and program code for commands;commands for managing applets. The program code and the associated file tree...