Different Types of Serial Numbers in Smart Card

Question

Can anyone please tell me how many types of serial number are there for a smart card. I am working on a smart card with three chips (MiFare Desfire and iCLASS for contactless) and (Crescendo 1150 for contact). When it comes to the question of what is a serial number I get confusing answers. I have been told that there is a serial number for each chip (contact and contactless) depending on where the card is used, the reader will read respective serial number. Now question is:

1. How can I uniquely identify a smart card regardless of the chips on the card?
2. what is printed on the surface of the card - Is there something called "Raw Card Serial Number" that is used for stock or inventory control purposes only? If yes, is this "Raw Card Serial Number" different from the serial numbers on the respective chips? If no, serial numbers are only programmed into the respective chip and what about serial number printed on card?

Answer 1

1) There is no uniform serial number, each chip manufacturer uses its own scheme. This is the reason, that projects using cards from several suppliers specify, how to retrieve it on a uniform way. Situation is better on Desfire, where there is only one supplier.

2) All cards I encountered, had no number printed on it. I doubt, that there is a reliable relation from a number printed on the card and its serial number, since this requires some effort during production and can be easily delegated to the customer. I would assume its more something like an order number.

Answer 2

If you define a smart card as being somewhat compliant to ISO 7816, then the following post shall be able to help you : APDU command to get the serial number of a smart card