Out in Front

Smart-card OSs aid application development

Smart-card OSs provide the common ground that card vendors and application developers need to design and develop applications. They can obtain smart-card OS information via the Internet. For a comprehensive list of who’s who in smart cards, try http://www.cardshow.com. The site links to various smart-card standards societies and universities engaged in smart-card research. Unfortunately, none of the card suppliers offers free, publicly available technical information for smart-card OSs—both for security reasons and to protect intellectual property. However, you can obtain information on a particular smart-card OS as part of an evaluation package. Such packages, which run on your PC, usually include a card reader, hardware, and some sample cards. To use an evaluation kit, you add a card-reader interface to electrically power and control the smart card and perform a protocol conversion between the ISO 7816-3 communication interface for smart cards and the COM port of a PC. You also need the command description of the card OS you intend to use. The vendor-provided evaluation software provides a convenient way to control the card.

An 8-bit smart-card mC offers 3- to 16-kbyte ROM for the OS and lets you implement a powerful and versatile card OS based on ISO 7816-4 within 6 to 8 kbytes, according to Bernard Laschinsky, senior manager of technical marketing at Advanced Card Systems (Hong Kong). Hitachi (Brisbane, CA), Microchip Technology (Chandler, AZ), Motorola Semiconductor (Austin, TX), Oki Semiconductor (Sunnyvale, CA), Philips Semiconductors (Sunnyvale, CA), SGS-Thomson Microelectronics (Lincoln, MA), Siemens Components, and Texas Instruments (Dallas) all offer smart card mCs. Although the power and sophistication of a 16-bit mC would benefit smart-card applications, smart cards use 8-bit µCs due to die-size limitations: Mechanical stress demands limit dice to 535 mm.

Unlike a computer OS, a smart-card OS has to manage only one hardware entity—the data-storage EEPROM. Further, the card OS is fixed in the ROM of the smart-card mC and is not expandable. A smart-card OS provides functions that a computer OS does not provide, such as access control and file management with the EEPROM. The application software sends commands to the smart card via a serial interface. The smart-card OS performs the requested function and returns status and data to the application via the same serial interface. Also, the single I/O channel prevents using the smart-card OS as a real-time OS.

Several vendors offer smart-card OSs. For example, CardOS from Siemens suits both authentication and identification tasks. The OS supports multistate security patterns with any combination of personal identification-number functions and challenge/response processes. A safety concept based on the latest encoding and decoding methods allows CardOS to use symmetrical or asymmetrical crypto-algorithms. Development support is available in a Windows-based development suite that supports all CardOS commands on the C/C++ level.

ACOS1 is a PC-based smart-card OS from Advanced Card Systems. Using ACOS1 you can develop smart-card-related applications in electronic banking, access control, and identity applications. According to the company, ACOS1 also works with smart cards without a mC, commonly known as “memory cards,” in security-critical applications.

Aladdin Knowledge Systems offers software developers and system integrators a modular environment for developing smart-card applications. Called ASE (Aladdin Smartcard Environment), the OS suits both mass- and small-audience smart-card applications, including access control, authentication, computer security, electronic payment, and related applications. An ASE developer’s kit is available. For comprehensive support in developing smart-card applications, Gemplus Technologies offers a wide range of products and services. The company provides cards, card-development kits, smart-card readers and interfaces, card-personalization services, and a smart-card OS.—by NS Manju Nath, EDN Asia

Advanced Card Systems, Scotts Valley, CA. (408) 438-3883, http://www.acs.com.

Aladdin Knowledge Systems, New York, NY. (800) 223-4277, fax (212) 564-3377, http://www.aks.com.

Gemplus Technologies, Dallas, TX. (214) 726-1870, fax (214) 726-1868, http://www.gemplus.com.

Siemens, Cupertino, CA. (408) 257-7910, http://www.siemens.com.