Smartcards
Smartcards exist of a combination of a plastic carrier and a chip. It is a collective of different combination possibilities between a variety of material options and categories. A short explanation:
Contact cards
Contact cards are produced conform with the ISO 7816 standard. This describes physical and mechanic qualities, the position of the chip, the protocols and the rules for data encoding. There are two different basis types:
- microprocessor cards
- memory cards.
Microprocessor cards have the same qualities as a mini computer: a CPU which acts as a data processor, RAM memory for program guide, ROM memory and an EEPROM (the hard disk)
A memory card can be compared to a floppy disk or a cd-rom. It doesn’t have a management tool and can be used as information carrier.
More information about the contactless cards can be found under the heading RFID cards.
