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ABSTRACT
A system is an arrangement in which all its units assemble and work together according to the
plan or program.
Traditionally, a system is divided into hardware and software sections that are designed
independently. Hardware implementation is fast and power efficient but costly. Software on
the other hand is cheap but slow and power inefficient. So, there was a need to have a
concurrent design flow which considers both hardware and software solutions to create
efficient designs.
An Embedded System is one that has computer hardware with software embedded in it as one
of its important components. It is designed for special purpose or application to either execute
a single program repeatedly or for single purpose with multiple functions.
Aim of this report, is to discuss about the smart card technology, using embedded systems.
Smart cards have made our life easier and fast with improved security. They provide tamper-
proof storage of user and account identity.
Smart card systems have proven to be more reliable than other machine-readable cards, like
magnetic stripe and barcode.
Declaration of “No Plagiarism”
I certify that this assignment is based on my personal study and research. I have
acknowledged all the material and sources used in it’s preparation, whether they are books,
articles or any other communication.
I also certify that I have not plagiarized other’s work for this report.
Introduction
A smart card is a small plastic card with a built-in microprocessor chip and integrated circuit, that can
store and process a lots of data. It is like an "electronic wallet". It is capable of storing and
processing the data securely in a network of computers.
The microprocessor is under a gold contact pad on one side of the card. Microprocessor
replaces the usual magnetic stripe on a credit card or debit card. The chip looks like as
follows:
Hybrid smart card: They are dual chip cards. Each chip has its own contact and contactless
interface, not connected to each other inside the card.
The smart card is presented by its hardware, the operating system running on the card and the
applications
ISO 7816: It describes the lowest -level interface to a contact smart card. It is at this
level that data bytes are transferred from card to its reader. ISO 7816 defines the size
of card, physical characteristics of the plastic including the temperature and position
of electrical contacts.
The aim is to have a hassle-free and secured transaction, between source and the destination.
The secret information is stored inside the card safely even when other hardware or software
are comprised eg. OS and other applications.
First, we need to place all secret component which are only accessible to the smart card such
as: Private key, shared key, username and account details.
Implement hash functions and the encryption/decryption algorithms to support authentication,
digital signature and encryption in the smart card.
We need simple Operating System support (HTTP/TCP/IP stack).
Need to model the necessary communication protocol between the smart card and card
terminal (or reader). For eg RSA (Rivest–Shamir–Adleman), which is one of the
first public-key cryptosystems and is widely used for secure data transmission. The following
is an example of handshaking between card and reader :
Then we need to integrate the entire system which is a classic example of the hardware and
software co-existence.
In next few slides we will see the hardware architecture and the associated software for the
generalized smart card chip.
Communications parameters (I/O) : Half duplex channel. Communicates with the reader
in Master/Slave relationship.
USB or PMCIA: To communicate with the host computers through a card reader.
Reset mechanism
Sleep mode (low current standby operation)
Co-processor: It provides a safe place in order to store sensitive data and support different
system level security services.
UART: A serial universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART) is an essential
component of a card, which receives and transmits the messages.
A transfer board was designed to extract the power consumption of contact cards.
We can design the overall architecture of software platform by top-down methods. The
important modules are :
Power Module controls the process of power trace collection while cards working. It
provides some interfaces like initializing the card reader and the oscilloscope, sending APDU
command, controlling the command cycles, saving the power traces, and so on.
Electromagnetic module could control the probe to scan the surface of smart cards step-by-
step, and find the best position with largest electromagnetic energy SNR.
Fault module can inject fault information into the contact smart card, such as the clock
frequency or power supply voltage. Once fault information has been successfully injected, the
smart card will return the wrong message. By analyzing the wrong information, we can
extract the sensitive data of the smart card.
Hardware-Software Co-Design:
Software hardware co-design is the design of co-operating software and hardware
components in a single design effort. The software and hardware are no longer designed and
implemented independently. So, weakness of traditional design, and brings up the idea of
concurrent one, which means software and hardware development always support each other
during the development phase.
A common characteristic of co-design is that creating the ‘software’ requires intimate
familiarity with the ‘hardware’. In addition, hardware covers much more than RTL models,
which also includes specialized processor data path, the FPGA fabric, multi-core
architectures, and more.
Software platform can exchange data with the hardware. For example, software sends
command to and receive response from the card reader. This is represented in the block
diagram below:
The figure above shows the co-works of software and hardware, with the following work
flow:
1)software configuration and initialization;
2)software activates hardware;
3)software sends command to the hardware;
4)hardware works;
5) software sends trigger signal;
6)hardware begins to collect information;
7) software receives the information;
8) information analysis
User’s Perspective
Smart card are plastic pocket cards around the size, of a credit card (portable) with an
embedded microchip (ICC), that can be loaded with data, used for many applications and
then periodically refreshed for additional use.
The most important part of the smart card is the microprocessor. There are 2 kinds of chips :
Memory chip
Microprocessor chip
Following are the differences between the two:
Memory Chip Microprocessor chip
They are just like a small floppy disk They can add, delete, and manipulate its
with optional security. memory.
They are very expensive as secondary They are like a mini-computer which includes
storage. an operating system, hard-disk and input-output
ports.
They offer little security features. They provide more security and memory. They
can even download more applications.
Conclusion
In this report we discussed the software hardware co-design for smart card using embedded
processor.
The scope of smart cards is increasing day by day in diverse applications like banking,
telephone services, and medical records systems, the main reason being that the information
on it cannot be copied and are secured.
Multi-application cards make one card to be able to do everything. For eg. Student id, driving
license, credit card, ATM card, medical aid card etc.
It has potential in market profits. The following are some market trends:
Reference Links:
http://www.smartcardbasics.com/smart-card-reader.html
http://www.smartcardbasics.com/smart-card-types.html#microprocessor-cards
https://docplayer.net/21014209-Lesson-3-case-study-of-an-embedded-system-for-smart-
card.html
https://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~kinsner/whatsnew/tutorials/tu1999/smcards.html