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What are Contactless Smart Cards?
What Is a Smart Card?
A smart card is an identification or transaction-oriented card made "smart"
by the addition of a chip. This chip contains both information about the
cardholder and applications that equip the card with special features,
such as advanced data access security.
Similar to the size of a credit card, a smart card can
be used with a reader that retrieves, analyzes and responds to the data
in the chip . From access control to e-commerce, smart cards can be used
in a wide range of applications. Smart cards provide data portability,
security and convenience.
Memory Smart Cards and Microprocessor Smart Cards
There are two basic types of smart cards: memory cards and microprocessor
cards. The difference is in the type of chip hardware that they contain
and how powerful that chip is.
Memory cards - which use serial memory chips
- can store large quantities of data and are equipped with security features.
While memory cards can perform basic mathematical functions (such as Add
and Subtract), the microprocessor card, which is equipped with Operating
System and built-in security hardware, can perform more complicated functions
and implement sophisticated actions which are required for high security
applications.
Contact Smart Cards
A contact smart card, whose chip is implanted into its surface, must be
inserted into a device called a Reader in order to supply its power and
make its data accessible both for reading and writing.
Contactless Smart Cards
A contactless smart card, whose chip is securely sealed between its internal
layers, contains a tiny antenna that enables it to communicate by means
of a radio frequency signal with smart card readers/writers. Because there
is no need for physical contact between the card and the reader, the card
is called contactless. Contactless smart cards (sometimes called "proximity
cards") can simply be held near a reader/writer, saving time, increasing
efficiency and significantly prolonging the life of the card and the reader/writer.
Sealing the chip within the card layers increases by several
orders of magnitude the durability of the chip/card and security of the
data.
Contactless cards are classified by the distance from
the contactless reader at which they can be read and written.
Next: Why to choose contactless
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