A smart card (SC), chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card), is a card used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) chip. Many smart cards include a pattern of metal contacts to electrically connect to the internal chip. Others are contactless, and some are both. Smart cards can provide personal identification, authentication, data storage, and application processing. Applications include identification, financial, public transit, computer security, schools, and healthcare. Smart cards may provide strong security authentication for single sign-on (SSO) within organizations. Numerous nations have deployed smart cards throughout their populations. The universal integrated circuit card (UICC) for mobile phones, installed as pluggable SIM card or embedded eSIM, is also a type of smart card. As of 2015, 10.5 billion smart card IC chips are manufactured annually, including 5.44 billion SIM card IC chips.
History
The basis for the smart card is the silicon integrated circuit (IC) chip, which was invented by Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1959. In the late 1960s, this invention led to the idea of incorporating the IC chip onto a plastic card.
Invention
The idea of incorporating an integrated circuit chip onto a plastic card was first introduced by the German engineer Helmut Gröttrup. In February 1967, Gröttrup filed the patents DE1574074 and DE1574075 in West Germany for a tamper-proof identification switch based on a semiconductor device and described contactless communication via inductive coupling. Its primary use was intended to provide individual copy-protected keys for releasing the tapping process at unmanned gas stations. In September 1968, Gröttrup, together with Jürgen Dethloff as an investor, filed further patents for this identification switch, first in Austria and in 1969 as subsequent applications in the United States, Great Britain, West Germany and other countries. Independently, Kunitaka Arimura of the Arimura Technology Institute in Japan developed a similar idea of incorporating an integrated circuit onto a plastic card, and filed a smart card patent in March 1970. The following year, Paul Castrucci of IBM filed an American patent titled "Information Card" in May 1971. In 1974 Roland Moreno patented a secured memory card later dubbed the "smart card". In 1976, Jürgen Dethloff introduced the known element (called "the secret") to identify gate user as of USP 4105156. In 1977, Michel Ugon from Honeywell Bull invented the first microprocessor smart card with two chips: one microprocessor and one memory, and in 1978, he patented the self-programmable one-chip microcomputer (SPOM) that defines the necessary architecture to program the chip. Three years later, Motorola used this patent in its "CP8". At that time, Bull had 1,200 patents related to smart cards. In 2001, Bull sold its CP8 division together with its patents to Schlumberger, who subsequently combined its own internal smart card department and CP8 to create Axalto. In 2006, Axalto and Gemplus, at the time the world's top two smart-card manufacturers, merged and became Gemalto. In 2008, Dexa Systems spun off from Schlumberger and acquired Enterprise Security Services business, which included the smart-card solutions division responsible for deploying the first large-scale smart-card management systems based on public key infrastructure (PKI). The first mass use of the cards was as a telephone card for payment in French payphones, starting in 1983.
Carte bleue After the Télécarte, microchips were integrated into all French Carte Bleue debit cards in 1992. Customers inserted the card into the merchant's point-of-sale (POS) terminal, then typed the personal identification number (PIN), before the transaction was accepted. Only very limited transactions (such as paying small highway tolls) are processed without a PIN. Smart-card-based "electronic purse" systems store funds on the card, so that readers do not need network connectivity. They entered European service in the mid-1990s. They have been common in Germany (Geldkarte), Austria (Quick Wertkarte), Belgium (Proton), France (Moneo), the Netherlands (Chipknip Chipper (decommissioned in 2015)), Switzerland ("Cash"), Norway ("Mondex"), Spain ("Monedero 4B"), Sweden ("Cash", decommissioned in 2004), Finland ("Avant"), UK ("Mondex"), Denmark ("Danmønt") and Portugal ("Porta-moedas Multibanco"). Private electronic purse systems have also been deployed such as the Marines corps (USMC) at Parris Island allowing small amount payments at the cafeteria. Since the 1990s, smart cards have been the subscriber identity modules (SIMs) used in GSM mobile-phone equipment. Mobile phones are widely used across the world, so smart cards have become very common.
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