Smartcards are small plastic cards with a chip on it, conforming to ISO/IEC 7816. There are two general kinds: memory cards (providing non-volatile memory) and processor cards. The specifications are available since at least 1989.
Examples for smartcards include
New-style flash memory cards such as SD, MMC, xD, MS, or CF cards are NOT considered smartcards.
A system employing a smartcard consists of these components:
There is a large variety of ICCs and CTs available, ISO/IEC 7816 ensures interoperability among them. Predominant communications layers are traditional serial or serial-over-USB connections, but some built-in CTs in laptop computers present a PCMCIA device interface.
There are at least four different APIs at various levels for CT and ICC access: CT-API, IFDHandler, CCID, and PC/SC. Due to the wide variety of ICCs, the APIs at most attempt to abstract management and CT interaction.
CT-API is the most basic of all: Devised by Deutsche Telekom, GMD, TUeV, and Teletrust, it specifies a protocol with a single request/response interaction. Depending on the address, the messages are sent to the CT or the ICC.
There is a USB class specification CCID (Chip/Smart Card Interface Devices).
IFDHandler is PC/SC Lite's driver API. It uses Windows-style coding conventions.
The PC/SC Workgroup developed the PC/SC API as an application API. It is compatible with the MS Windows winscard API and provides 19 function calls.
Some drivers implement the IFDHandler API in terms of the CT-API, among them OZSCR and Towitoko.
PC/SC Lite implements the PC/SC API, using the IFDHandler API for its drivers.
Written by Jens Maurer, my e-mail address is first name dot last name
at gmx dot net.
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