Do smart-card readers support all smart-cards models?

Question

Do smart-cards require a different kind of reader depending on the model or do all readers support all kinds of smart-cards? Assuming I have a specific card model in mind, how do I find out what kind of reader I need?

Answer 1

Depends on the chip used, have a look at:

• Smart Card Readers and Terminals
• ISO/IEC 7816 Standard

Answer 2

The main difference with contact cards is synchronous memory cards vs asynchronous microprocessor cards.

Most "interesting" smart cards are asynchronous microprocessor cards (like SIM cards, bank cards, electronic ID badges etc).

Contact cards and contactless cards are a whole different story though.

Answer 3

Somewhat surprised, to see a pointer-only answer as accepted, I supplement the following:

While there is a good chance, that a card and a reader will be able to communicate, watch out for these criteria:

• Maximum data field size; an important boundary is support of extended length APDUs (> 255 byte), required for 2048 bit RSA signatures
• For contact-based cards: external clock (3.57, 4.91, more than 5 MHz)and supported communication rates. Note that the default is just 9600 bit/s, so even reading a moderately sized file may become noticeable.
• Match of supported protocols between card and reader (T=0, T=1; T=CL)
• For contactless thoroughly check before; there are different frequency bands and incompatible protocols within the same frequency (ISO 14443 type A and type B)