WO2010061068A1

WO2010061068A1 - Usb key endowed with contactless reader and contactless chip card emulation functions

Info

Publication number: WO2010061068A1
Application number: PCT/FR2009/001270
Authority: WO
Inventors: Frédéric Bouchy
Original assignee: Neowave (S.A.S.)
Priority date: 2008-11-03
Filing date: 2009-11-03
Publication date: 2010-06-03
Also published as: FR2938094B1; FR2938094A1

Abstract

The invention relates to a portable and communicating electronic device (1), comprising a casing provided with a USB connector allowing connection thereof to a host system, and in which is disposed a printed circuit card on the faces of which are fixed a plurality of electronic components, including: - a contact chip card component (15); - a microcontroller (5) for managing the communication between said contact chip card (15) and a USB interface (3), the device being characterized in that it furthermore comprises a component (9) endowed with a contactless communication function compatible with the NFC communication standard and connected to an antenna (13), said component (9) being connected on the one hand to said microcontroller (5) by a communication bus (17) allowing control of the component (9) by the microcontroller (5), and connected on the other hand to said contact chip card (15) by a communication bus (21) implementing the SWP protocol.

Description

USB stick with contactless reader and contactless smart card emulation capabilities

The present invention relates to a portable electronic object communicating, in the format of a USB key, comprising several modes of operation, including a mode of operation in a contactless smart card reader and a mode of operation in smart card emulation without contact.

State of the art

There are today a large number of portable and communicating objects, whether communication is via ohmic contacts, or without contact by means of radio or optical communication. Among these portable objects, we know:

chip card devices, comprising a microprocessor and a memory accessible from outside the device via a chip card connector, or a contactless smart card interface.

- Tokens or keys with or without contact, also called "token" in English terminology, behaving like smart cards with or without contact.

key called USB keys (for "Universal Serial Bus" in English terminology), provided with a USB connector for connection to a host device, and mainly containing a mass memory, which can thus be used, in particular, to easily transport data files from one host system to another.

However, the needs of current applications for communicating portable objects are constantly increasing and diversifying, in particular because of the mobility of their users and the need for them to use their communicating portable objects in various applications, such as applications. transport, payment, reloading of smart cards online, etc.

Furthermore, there is known a contactless communicating portable device, comprising a USB connector connected to a microcontroller, which is connected with a part to a mass memory, and secondly to a contactless smart card component itself connected to an antenna for communication with an external device, such as a contactless smart card reader. This device therefore has, in addition to known contactless smart cards, a microcontroller for managing the USB connection with a host system such as a personal computer, and a mass memory.

In the non-contact mode of operation of this device, only the smart card is powered through the antenna, and in contact mode, the microcontroller, the mass memory and the smart card are all powered through the antenna. USB connection. The advantage of such a device compared to simple USB sticks lies in the fact that in connected mode, it allows to communicate the contactless smart card, with a host system such as a personal computer, where the possibility of giving this device internet connectivity.

Although it represents a significant advance over the simple pre-existing USB keys, this device has a disadvantage, in that it can not as such operate as a card reader to read a contactless card.

Furthermore, known card readers are not able to provide a smart card emulation function. Now some applications envisaged will now need both functions, namely a contactless smart card reading function, and a smart card emulation function, on the same device.

Aims of the invention A general object of the invention is to overcome the disadvantages of communicating portable devices of the state of the art.

Another more specific object of the invention is to propose a device that is able to function both as a contactless smart card, and as a contactless reader capable of interacting with external contactless smart cards, or with other non-contact devices. Another object of the invention is to provide a device that is compact, substantially the size of the USB keys already known, and low cost, well below the cost of known smart card readers.

Summary of the invention

A major difference of the device according to the invention with respect to the known devices resides in the presence of an electronic component enabling an NFC-type contactless communication to communicate with a contactless object such as a mobile telephone, or another portable device. communicating. The architecture of the device according to the invention is organized in such a way that the device can operate alternately in non-contact smart card emulation mode, or in non-contact smart card reader mode.

Abuse of language is often referred to a microelectronic chip card component, the term smart card, and it will be the same in the present application.

The subject of the invention is therefore a portable and communicating electronic device, comprising a housing provided with a USB connector enabling it to be connected to a host system, a housing in which is disposed a printed circuit board on whose faces a plurality of electronic components, including:

a contact chip card component;

a microcontroller for managing the communication between said contact chip card and a USB interface, the device being characterized in that it furthermore comprises a component provided with a contactless communication function compatible with the NFC communication standard and connected to an antenna, said NFC communication component being furthermore connected, on the one hand, to said microcontroller by a communication bus enabling the control of the NFC component by the microcontroller, and on the other hand to said contact smart card by a communication bus implementing the SWP protocol. The structure of the device allows it to have two modes of operation, namely a mode of operation in a contactless smart card reader, in which it is connected to a host system via the USB interface, and a autonomous mode of operation, in which it emulates a contactless smart card when it is placed in the electromagnetic field of a contactless smart card reader. In this way, the device allows to coexist, in the restricted volume of a USB key, a contactless reader function, and a contactless smart card emulation function.

Advantageously, when the device operates in autonomous mode, the contact chip card is directly accessible by an external contactless reader via the antenna and the contactless communication function component.

NFC. Thus, in stand-alone mode, this makes it possible to supply the contact smart card and transport APDU commands transmitted by the external reader to the contact chip card.

Similarly, in the operating mode of the device connected to a host system, the smart card is accessible via the USB interface and the microcontroller, without passing through the component with contactless communication function.

Alternatively, in operating mode connected to a host system, the internal smart card is accessible via the USB interface, the microcontroller and the component with contactless communication function.

In an advantageous embodiment of the device, the device further comprises peripherals, in particular a mass memory connected to the microcontroller.

Preferably, the smart card is a small format card, especially in SIM format. In a variant, the housing of the device then comprises a removable hatch giving access to a connector for insertion of the SIM card. But in another even more compact variant of the device, the SIM card is replaced by a single smart card chip, and said chip is directly soldered to the printed circuit of the device.

Advantageously, the device's embedded software is configured to be able to manage administrative commands from a host system to which the device is connected, or from a remote server via the Internet, regardless of the operating system of the device. this one and whatever browser is used. detailed description

The invention will be better understood with the aid of the detailed description which follows and with the aid of the accompanying drawings, in which: FIG. 1 schematically represents the internal architecture of the device according to the invention.

- Figure 2 shows the software architecture of the device according to the invention, in connection with the software architecture of a host system.

In the rest of the text, we will use the following definitions, and the associated acronyms:

- Dual interface card: this is a smart card with at least contact communication interfaces (according to the ISO / IEC 7816 standard) and without contact (according to the ISO / IEC 14443 standard);

- SIM card: it is not necessarily a smart card dedicated to telecommunications applications, but simply a plastic SIM chip card, namely ID-OOO (25 mm by 15 mm) or mini-UICC (12 mm by 15 mm), and containing a chip card component with 8 contacts (C1 to C8);

- NFC (acronym for "Near Field Communication" in English terminology): this is a contactless communication technology with a maximum range of about 10 cm depending on the capabilities of the NFC component. The following communication protocols can be supported: ISO / IEC 14443 Type B, ISO / IEC 14443 Type A, MIFARE (NXP), FeIiCa (Sony), and Innovatron. In addition, NFC technology also supports ISO / IEC 15693 communication.

Referring to Figure 1 showing the architecture of the portable object 1 communicating according to the invention.

The portable object 1 is the size of a USB key, therefore it comprises a housing (not shown) having a few centimeters in length and width, and a thickness of about one centimeter.

In the housing, made in particular of plastic material, is housed an electronic card in the form of a printed circuit (called PCB in English terminology). Saxon), on both sides of which are welded all the electronic components listed below (we do not quote the passive electronic components: resistors, capacitors, etc.).

- A USB connector 3, which allows connection with a host system (not shown and also provided with a USB connector), such as a personal computer;

a microcontroller 5 making it possible to manage the USB connection 3. This microcontroller is optionally connected to one or more external peripherals 7, such as for example an external mass memory, notably a flash memory. This microcontroller 5 also manages the communication with a contact chip card 15. Other external peripherals may optionally be provided in addition to or instead of the flash memory, such as for example chip card components, diodes electroluminescent displays, LCD displays, biometric sensors, etc. an NFC component 9 for managing the contactless communication with an external device such as a contactless smart card (not shown). The NFC component 9 is in particular in accordance with the NFC communication protocol, and comprises for this purpose an oscillator (not shown) and is connected to an antenna 13 integrated on the printed circuit. - The smart card contact 15 is connected on the one hand to the microcontroller 5 so that it can communicate with the host system. The contact chip card 15 is further connected to the NFC component 9 so as to be able to communicate without contact with an external device 11. For this purpose, the connector C6 of the contact chip card 15 is connected to the input SWP For the "Single Wire Protocol" of the NFC component 9. As known to those skilled in the art, this protocol defines a specification for a single-wire connection between a SIM-type smart card and a chip. enabling contactless communication.

It should be noted that the smart card 15 could be an ID-I format card, but in order to make the device 1 as compact as possible, the smart card 15 is preferably in the format of the SIM cards (ID-OOO or mini-UICC). For this purpose, the shell is then equipped with a removable hatch giving access to a SIM card connector, the type of those found in mobile phones using SIM cards, and the SIM card is then inserted into the slot defined by the hatch and connected to the SIM card connector.

Alternatively, to further minimize the size of the device 1 according to the invention, the SIM card holder and the SIM card can be replaced by a chip card component directly soldered to the printed circuit board. In this case, the housing door for the SIM card is not required.

In the architecture of FIG. 1, the microcontroller 5 generates the signals

RST (reset), CLK (clock) and I / O (input / output) of the contact chip card 15. The VCC power supply of the contact chip card 15 comes from the NFC component 9, under the control of the microcontroller 5, via a dedicated GPIO input.

Operation of the device according to the invention Device 1 manages two modes of operation, namely:

an "autonomous" mode which corresponds to a use of the device in contactless mode only, in the manner of a badge or a contactless smart card, and in which the device is not connected to a host system via its USB connector. - a "connected" mode that corresponds to use when the device is connected to a PC (or any host machine) via its USB connector.

More precisely, in autonomous mode, when the device 1 is placed in a suitable electromagnetic field, the antenna 13 draws energy from this field, which makes it possible to supply the component NFC 9, which itself feeds the card The other components (microcontroller 5, external peripherals 7) are then not powered. The NFC component 9 redirects the commands from its contactless interface to the contact chip card 15 using the SWP connection 21. In stand-alone mode, the single wire protocol (SWP) signal originates from the NFC component. On the other hand, in connected mode, all the components are powered via the USB connector 3.

Use of the device according to the invention

The device 1 includes the following functions:

In standalone mode: the device 1 operates simply as a contactless smart card, and can be used as such in all kinds of applications contactless smart cards, such as including transport applications where the card smart is used as a transport ticket. A contactless reader terminal can send APDU commands to the software applications hosted on the contact smart card 15.

These APDU commands are received by the NFC component 9 by means of the antenna 13. The NFC component 9 redirects them to the contact chip card 15, via the SWP communication bus 21. The responses to these APDU commands returned by the smart card contact 15 take the opposite way, namely the communication bus 21, then are returned by the NFC component 9 to the reader without contact via the antenna 13.

In connected mode, the same device 1 has a plurality of possible uses:

functioning as a contact card reader: it is possible, from the host machine on which the device is connected, to communicate with the contact chip card via the microcontroller 5 and the communication bus 19, either to communicate with the contact chip card 15 via the microcontroller 5 and the NFC component 9 by using the communication bus 17 between the microcontroller 5 and the NFC component 9, and the communication bus 21 between the NFC component 9 and the NFC 9 smart card contact 15.

functioning as a reader of an external contactless card: this is the possibility of programming the NFC component 9 in reader mode in order to read a smart card or any other object without external contact (not shown), with one of the contactless communication protocols supported by the NFC component; - Operation in virtual CD-ROM: it is the possibility of emulation of a CD-ROM type storage unit to support the so-called "autorun" feature of Microsoft Windows (registered trademark).

operation in mass memory: it is the possibility of supporting one or more mass storage units connected to the microcontroller, in particular with flash type memories.

- Operation in card reader (s) additional contact (s): it is the ability to communicate with one or more other chip card components integrated into the device and connected to the microcontroller, subject to the maximum congestion that we want to give the device.

Integration of the device according to the invention into a host system

Referring to Figure 2, the purpose is to ensure that the NFC communication device 1 can operate on any host operating system (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux distributions, etc.). .), on the other hand that it is possible to communicate with this device from a web page in a portable way, that is to say independently of the Internet browser used (among which Internet Explorer and Firefox) and independently of the system d. host farm.

For this, from a software point of view, the device 1 is compatible with the USB 2.0 specification and in particular the classes CCID (acronym for "Chip / Smart Card Interface Device") and MSC (acronym for "Mass-storage class" ). The CCID class enables contact and contactless functions The MSC class is used to perform virtual CD-ROM and flash drive functions.

PC / SC is an API (acronym for high-level Application Programming Interface) that allows a host application to communicate with smart card readers As shown in Figure 2, host operating systems provide an implementation of TAPI PC / SC above CCID.

Portability from an Internet browser is achieved through the implementation of a 3ava applet, which is based on the package "javax.smartcardio" (provided with the JRE, acronym for "Java Runtime Environment", version 6 and above ) whose implementation relies on PC / SC APIs. This Java applet exposes a programmatic interface that can be called from, for example, the JavaScript or ECMAScript code of the Web page and gives access to the features of the "javax.smartcardio" package. ^;

Device Administration Commands

The device 1 according to the invention manages a set of administration commands that make it possible to read the internal data of the device (for example its identifier, or its configuration parameters) or to write data (for example the update of its embedded software, noted "firmware" in English terminology).

These administrative commands can be sent from a remote Web server connected to a web page that uses the Java applet. The implementation of these software components makes it possible to send the administrative commands to the device 1 in a portable manner (that is to say independently of the browser and the operating system).

In order to be able to overcome the use of a particular software component and dependent on the host operating system, it exploits the fact that the device according to the invention manages the interface CCID to encapsulate the administrative commands in an APDU command with a recognized special header of the software embedded in the device. Thus, an APDU command with this special header is processed by the software, otherwise it is transmitted to the smart card contact 15.

It is also necessary to manage the case of non-presence of the smart card contact (especially in the case where it is a removable SIM card). In this case, the embedded software simulates the presence of the card by returning a false ATR (power-on response), thus making the host operating system believe the presence of a SIM card: this makes it possible not to block sending administrative commands from the host system.

Advantages of the device according to the invention The invention meets the stated goals. In particular, it makes it possible to propose a new USB-type device equipped with a new function, namely the function of a smart card reader, and this in the reduced format typical of USB sticks.

In addition, the invention provides a device with an open and versatile architecture, allowing a dual function of contactless card or contactless card reader, depending on how the device is connected to its external environment.

Moreover, the device according to the invention can be managed and updated from a host system, regardless of the operating system thereof. It should also be noted that the new dual function is obtained despite the absence of an internal battery in the device, since the power supply is done either by the host system connected by the USB interface, or by the electromagnetic field. a reader without external contact.

Claims

An electronic and communicating electronic device (1), comprising a housing provided with a USB connector for connection to a host system, and in which is disposed a printed circuit board on whose faces a plurality of electronic components are fixed, including:

a contact chip card component (15); a microcontroller (5) for managing the communication between said contact chip card (15) and a USB interface (3), the device being characterized in that it further comprises a component (9) equipped with a function non-contact communication device compatible with the NFC communication standard and connected to an antenna (13), said component (9) being connected on the one hand to said microcontroller (5) by a communication bus (17) allowing the control of the component ( 9) by the microcontroller (5), and connected on the other hand to said contact chip card (15) by a communication bus (21) implementing the SWP protocol.

2. Device (1) according to claim 1, characterized in that it comprises two modes of operation, namely a mode of operation in a contactless smart card reader, in which it is connected to a host system via the USB interface (3), and a stand-alone mode of operation, in which it emulates a contactless smart card when it is placed in the electromagnetic field of a contactless smart card reader.

3. Device (1) according to claim 2, characterized in that in autonomous operating mode, the contact chip card (15) is accessible by an external reader without contact, via the antenna (13) and the component (9) with contactless communication function.

4. Device (1) according to claim 2, characterized in that in operating mode connected to a host system, the contact chip card (15) is accessible via the USB interface (3) and the microcontroller (5) without passing through the component (9) with a contactless communication function

5. Device (1) according to claim 2, characterized in that in operating mode connected to a host system, the contact chip card (15) is accessible via the USB interface (3), the microcontroller (5). ) and the component (9) has a contactless communication function.

6. Device (1) according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it further comprises a mass memory (7) connected to the microcontroller (5).

7. Device (1) according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the smart card (15) is a card in SIM card format, namely ID-OOO or mini-UICC.

8. Device (1) according to claim 7, characterized in that the housing of the device (1) comprises a removable hatch giving access to a connector for insertion of said SIM card.

9. Device (1) according to claim 7, characterized in that the SIM card is replaced by a single smart card chip, and in that said chip is directly soldered to the printed circuit of the device (1).

10. Device (1) according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it comprises an embedded software capable of managing administrative commands from a remote host system via the Internet, regardless of the system of exploitation of it and whatever browser is used.