There are two types of TB-100 cards: one with the contact pads
in the top left corner (the old type) and one with the contact pads
at the left centre (the new type). The latter was introduced
in 1990 and became the standard format.
The physical specifications are defined in ISO 7816.
Early card readers, like the PE-118 and PE-112
were capable of reading both card types — they had two sets of contacts —
but later ones like PE-122 were only suitable for the newer model.
The electrical specifications and the layout of the contact pads are identical
for both card types.
The actual smart chip is located under the gold-plated contact pads.
It's a monolythic (single-chip) design in HCMOS technology, and
comprises a Motorola 68H05 8-bit microcontroller,
128 bytes RAM, 6KB ROM and 3KB EEPROM.
The bare chip is bonded directly to the contact pads, and is then embedded
in a plastic ID-1 format card
that measures 85.6 × 53.98 × 0.80 mm.
In order to prepare TB-100 cards for use with
Philips crypto-equipment,
and to store suitable key material on them, Philips released a series
of smart card reader/writers. Initially such readers had to be built into
a Personal Computer (PC) and required a proprietary interface in the
form of an ISA bus card, but later units were simply connected to the
COM port (i.e. the RS232 serial port).
PE-118
1988
PE-118 is an early smart card reader that could be placed in an
empty 5¼" bay of a Personal Computer (PC) of the era. It was
introduced around 1988 and requires a large ISA bus expansion card
to be installed as well. The reader has a parallel interface and
is connected to the expansion card by means of a flat cable.
PE-122 was an external card reader that could be connected
to the RS232 serial port (the COM port) of any regular PC of the era.
It was introduced around 1990 and is suitable for most existing
smart cards, including the TB-100.
When a smart card is powered on, or when reset is asserted, it produces a
so-called Answer-To-Reset (ATR) — a string of hexadecimal values
(bytes) that allows the card reader to check for compatibility. The ATR has
a variable length that should be parsed by the reader on-the-fly [9].
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Crypto Museum. Created: Tuesday 16 June 2020. Last changed: Thursday, 09 May 2024 - 08:53 CET.
