IV.

CONTACT CARDS

One of the most commonly used and longest

lived forms of the smart cards is the contact
card. SIM cards in phones are one example
of this. The module for communicating with
smart cards is the ISO Standard 7816 as
shown in Figure 1. This contains eight
contacts however only six are used for
communicating with external devices. The
other two contacts are used to power the
smart card.

Figure 1 ISO Standard 7816

While every card may not use this same
standard, they do all have similar formats in
that they have eight contacts all arranged
around a large central ground.
The VCC and ground points are used to
power the smart card when it is in contact.
The reset (RST) contact is used for resetting
the cards communications the VPP contact
is used for programming voltages such, that
are higher and often for more program
persistent memory, the clock (CLK) is used
to provide the card with an external clock
signal, and the I/O is the serial input and
output. The last two pins, the RFU pins are
the used for USB interfaces and other uses.
Smart cards can have five types of memory

Read only memory (ROM)

Programmable ROM (PROM)
Erasable PROM (EPROM)

Electrically EPROM (EEPROM)

Random Access Memory (RAM)

All memory on cards takes up a certain

amount of physical space, often called real
estate. So the less space a certain type of
memory takes up, the less it costs. ROM is
the cheapest memory since it takes up the
least space. ROM, once manufactured by the
semiconductor company, cannot be changed.
PROM takes up the next lowest amount of
space. It can be programmed through
physical connections, but only with high
voltages so it is often not used. EPROM is
next in real estate and can only be erased
through the use of ultra violet light and
memory is only ever really used in one time
programmable (OTP) mode. EEPROM takes
up a large amount of real estate, but is the
most useful since it can be rewritten to many
times. All forms of ROM are non-volatile,
meaning they retain their memory without
power. RAM is the case of volatile memory
that loses its data when the power is
removed.