The Basic Structure of Smart Cards
Introduction:
Smart Cards are being extensively used in various fields of life. It
has provided customers with the ease of mobility while carrying their
personal details with them in an extremely secure manner. Smart Cards
have been implemented initially as pre-paid phone cards and picked up
trends to be used for e-commerce today.
Today I will present the basic structure of a smart card, itÂ’s uses,
security feature, and the various benefits customers can enjoy.
What Is A Smart Card?
Smart Cards can be thought of being a specialized form of computing
that are plastic cards same in size and shape as that of a credit card
with an integrated microprocessor and memory.
History Of Smart Cards:
Smart cards can be traced back to 1968 when using plastic cards as the
carrier of microchips was first developed by the German inventors
Jurgen Dethloff and Helmut Grotrupp .Two years later, in 1970,
Kunitaka Arimura developed a similar application.
Then in 1980 Smart Cards were introduced in Europe for pre-paid phone
cash. When a customer purchased this pre-paid phone card, it
contained the total amount of “cash” available against which calls
could be made. So basically - he made a one-time payment against the
amount that he could use for his phone calls.
The total cash available was coded into the microprocessor chip
embedded in the smart card. Next, whenever a user made a phone call,
the bill amount was charged to the card => it was debited from the
total cash available.
Essential Parts Of Smart Cards:
Microprocessor:
A typical smart card has a small microproce...
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...iversities of all types need simple identity cards
for all employees and students. Most of these people are also granted
access to certain data, equipment and departments according to their
status. Multifunction, microprocessor-based smart cards incorporate
identity with access privileges and also store value for use in
various locations, such as cafeterias and stores.
Conclusion
Smart cards can add convenience and safety to any transaction of value
and data;They have largely replaced a lot of credit card and money
transactions.
The industry analysts and the specialized press forecast a brilliant
future for the smart cards. Billions of cards are predicted to be
circulating in a few years as it has provided greater mobility to
users and security when online transactions or authentic checks are
concerned.