Computing device with an emedded microprocessor or micro-controller

• US 20040078798A1
• Filed: 11/06/2003
• Published: 04/22/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Smart Card Solutions Limited
• Original Assignee: Smart Card Solutions Limited
• Inventors: Kelly, Martin Sean, Strauch, Martin, Fisher, Simon, Wenham, Steven James
• Granted Patent: US 7,182,250 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 719/310
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/60 Software deployment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/341 Active cards, i.e. cards including their own processing means, e.g. including an IC or chip
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3552 Downloading or loading of personalisation data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3563 Software being resident on card
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3576 Multiple memory zones on card
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/1008 Active credit-cards provided with means to personalise their use, e.g. with PIN-introduction/comparison system

Abstract

A computing device with an embedded microprocessor or micro-controller, including a software stack which comprises a content manager, and a runtime environment positioned in the stack above or together with a hardware abstraction layer. The content manager is not specific to any one design of runtime environment or hardware abstraction layer, so that several different designs of runtime environment and/or hardware abstraction layer can each operate with the same content manager. This de-couples the content manager from the runtime environment and/or hardware abstraction layer (e.g. a Java Virtual machine; elements of the operating system). The core advantage is that a single content manager can be used across multiple runtime environments and/or hardware abstraction layers; runtime environments and OSs can therefore be swapped without needing to re-write the content manager.

Claims

1. A computing device with an embedded microprocessor or micro-controller, in which a software stack comprises a content manager, and a runtime environment positioned in the stack above or together with a hardware abstraction layer;

wherein the content manager is not specific to any one design of runtime environment or hardware abstraction layer, so that several different designs of runtime environment and/or hardware abstraction layer can each operate with the same content manager.

2. The computing device of claim 1 in which the content manager resides below at least some of the hardware abstraction layer in the stack and sends and receives data via an interface which is not specific to any one design of runtime environment or hardware abstraction layer.

3. The computing device of claim 2 in which the interface enables the content manager and runtime environment to exchange at least one of the following commands:

(a) ‘

select’

, for informing the runtime environment that a new application has been selected and ‘

deselect’

for informing the runtime environment that a current application has been deselected;

(b) ‘

process’

for causing the runtime environment to process commands routed via the content manager and for causing the content manager to process a request on behalf of the runtime environment;

(c) ‘

defragment’

for informing the runtime environment when the content manager moves blocks of memory, so that storage addresses can be altered; and

(d) ‘

loading’

announcing to the runtime environment that a new element of content has been loaded.

4. The computing device of claim 1 or 2 in which the content manager executes directly on the host microprocessor or micro-controller and not within or by the runtime environment.

5. The computing device of claim 1 in which an applet can call the content manager via a thin wrapper in which the wrapper insulates the calling applet from needing to communicate directly with the content manager underneath the hardware abstraction layer.

6. The computing device of claim 1 in which the hardware abstraction layer comprises a Java Virtual Machine and an operating system.

7. The computing device of claim 1 in which the content manager is implemented as a plug-in, such that its interfaces are defined in such a way that the content manager can be exchanged for a second content manager with alternative procedural behaviour without the need to modify the supported runtime environment.

8. The computing device of claim 1 in which the content manager is written in a programming language specifically for the development of applications in a format which is readily portable across different microprocessors and/or microcontrollers.

9. The computing device of claim 1 in which the same content manager can be used with one or more of the following runtime environments:

(a) JavaCard

(b) SMOS

(c) EMV

(d) PKI

10. The computing device of claim 1 in which the runtime environment is implemented as a plug-in.

11. The computing device of claim 1 comprising several runtime environments.

12. A method of loading applets onto several computing devices with embedded system architectures, in which the same loading instructions can be used by devices with different runtime environments and/or hardware abstraction layers because each device is a device as claimed in claim 1 or 2.