What Is a Chip Card?

An integrated circuit card (IC card) is also called a smart card, an intelligent card, a microcircuit card, or a microchip card. It is a microelectronic chip embedded in a card base that complies with the ISO 7816 standard and made into a card form. The communication method between the IC card and the reader can be contact or non-contact. Due to its small size, easy to carry, large storage capacity, high reliability, long service life, strong confidentiality and high security, the concept of IC card was proposed in the early 1970s. He first created IC card products and applied this technology to industries such as finance, transportation, medical treatment, and identification. It combined microelectronics and computer technology to improve the modernization of people's work and life ^{[1 ]} .

According to the different integrated circuits embedded in the card, IC cards can be divided into memory cards, non-contact IC cards, optical cards, non-contact smart IC cards, and smart cards ^[2]

The IC card has the following characteristics:

Small size and light, very easy to carry; large storage capacity, CPU card contains microprocessor, memory can be divided into several application areas, convenient for one card multi-purpose, convenient storage; high reliability, IC card strong anti-magnetic, anti-static, anti-interference ability , The reliability is higher than the magnetic card; long life, information can be read and written 100,000 times, long life; strong confidentiality, high security, the IC card itself has hardware security settings, you can control the reading and writing of certain areas in the IC card Features, if you try to decrypt, these areas are self-locking, that is, read and write operations are not possible. The information in the IC card cannot be copied after being encrypted, the password is incorrectly checked, and the card itself has a self-destruct function, so the data in the IC card is safe and reliable; the network requirements are not high, and the security and reliability of the IC card make it useful for computer networks in applications. Real-time, low sensitivity requirements, can be applied in the environment of low network quality or when not online; IC card read-write mechanism is simpler, more reliable, cheaper to build, easier to popularize, and easier to maintain than magnetic card read-write mechanism ^[2]

The gas station IC card is a cash stored value card, which has extremely high requirements for the security and confidentiality of the data on the card. This system uses the following standards in the selection of IC cards:

(1) Identification card integrated circuit card standard "ISO / IEC7816-1/2/3/4".

(2) Part 1, 2, 9 of "China Financial Integrated Circuit (IC) Card Specification" V2.0.

(3) Financial IC card standards (PBOCI.O) formulated by the People's Bank of China.

According to the above standards, we choose radio frequency CPU card. The card stores the user's basic information, balance, necessary conditions for transactions, and recent transaction details. At the same time, it also stores various data read and write permissions and authentication passwords. All data exchange operations with the card must go through the CPU in the card; all the operation data is encrypted; the encrypted operation is completed by the security module in the card terminal. The number of incorrect operations will be recorded by the IC card. When the number of operations is greater than the specified value, the IC card will self-lock or even destroy its own data to ensure global security ^[4] .