Smart Cards
Smart Cards for all applications. Includes silver and gold PIC based smart cards and yellow AVR based cards. All cards also have external EEPROM memory
Gold Smart Cards PIC16F84
Gold Smart Card
The GOLD Smart Card is an 8 bit, field programmable, ISO-7816 compatible multi-chip Smart Card featuring the Microchip Technology PIC16F84...
Order Code
SC-GOLD
Price: $12.50
Silver Smart Cards 16F877
Silver Smart Card
The Smart Card SILVER is a field programmable ISO-7816-1 pin-out compatible multi-chip Smart Card featuring the Microchip PIC16F877 and 8KB EEPROM...
Order Code
SC-SILVER
Price: $23.90
Yellow Smart Cards - ATmega8515
Yellow Smart Card
The Smart Card YELLOW, also known as a Funcard 4, is a field programmable, ISO-7816-1 pin-out compatible multi-chip Smart Card featuring the ATMEL ATmega8515 + 24C64 die.
Order Code
SC-YELLOW
Price: $19.00
SLE5542 Secure Smart Card 5 Pack
Infineon SLE5542 Secure Smart Card, 5 Pack
Infineon SLE5542 based blank white cards, contains 256 x 8 bits of EEPROM main memory and a 32 x 1 bit protection PROM memory.
Completely backward compatible to IS23SC4442 / SLE4442 based card
Order Code
SLE5542-5
Price: $25.00
All About Smart Cards
Smart cards are credit card size with embedded electronics in them. They are defined by various standards covering size, location of electronics, type of plastic and similar parameters, such as ISO 7816-1. They are used for all sorts of applications including financial, transport, membership cards, licences and door entry systems. Smart cards used in most of these applications need very high levels of security – you do not want your money taken! This type of card is the province of big corporations but there are simple smart cards for more general use.
The simplest types just have a memory chip but these obviously have no intelligence and, more importantly, no security. Typical smart card readers or programmers can read or write these cards just like any other but they are not especially popular.
Most smart cards include an embedded processor as well as a memory chip. The data is stored in the memory chip but the microcontroller can act as a gateway. This means that different communications protocols can be used and quite sophisticated security procedures can be implemented by firmware in the microcontroller.
The cards commonly used have either a PIC or AVR microcontroller embedded in them plus a memory chip. There are a large range of cards with slightly different variations (Fun cards and all sorts of strange names) but the commonest ones are Silver , Gold and Yellow. The colour does not refer to the colour of the card, which are nearly always white, but is just a name.
- Gold Card: PIC16F86 microcontroller plus 16KB external EEPROM memory
- Silver Card: PIC16F876 (or PIC16F877) plus 8KB external EEPROM memory
- Yellow Card: ATmega8515 plus 8KB external EEPROM memory
These are the most up to date generally available units with the most resources for the price. A smart card programmer is able to read and write all types of card, especially these three but also a wide range of others with older microcontrollers, such as Atmel AT90S8515.
There is lots of publicly available for all these cards to carry out a range of tasks like door entry, computer server access restriction, membership control and many others. Download the code, modify it if necessary and program your selected card.
Smart cards and Programmers on Kanda blog